


Then Magic Happens

by daintylemonsquare



Category: Charmed (TV), Dalton Academy Series
Genre: Gen, Julian and His Five Boyfriends kinda, Magic, Multi, Other, Stuart Trio
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-06-06 07:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15190046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daintylemonsquare/pseuds/daintylemonsquare
Summary: I promise you, this is not the end. We will not end. My coven will become stronger, mark my words. Our magic will pool until it will overflow upon the firstborns of the leaders of our three factions. Together, they will be the greatest force of good the universe will ever know. They will be known as the Charmed Ones.





	1. Life and Death...

**Author's Note:**

> The Charmed!Stuart Trio no one really asked for. If you're from the Charmed fandom, welcome and I guess I'm sorry. (Fight me.) Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this but it's whatever. I'm depressed and I can't write original fiction anymore because it makes me sadder these days. Let me know what you think. There will at least be one more chapter.   
> Also, I'm not editing this so if you see any grammatical/syntax errors then ¯\\_(ヅ)_/¯

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek dreams. Logan doesn't behave. Julian throws himself off a building.

His name was Jude Whittaker and he was going to be burned at the stake.

Behind the heads of the angry and frightened townspeople, behind the church, beyond the trees, he saw smoke. His home and the homes of his coven were now gone. All because of a warlock deluded into thinking they were a witch, begging to be part of the most powerful and hidden coven in the world. They couldn’t let him into their coven due to their unsavory use of magic. The demons they summoned. The spells they used to make himself more powerful and manipulate humans to get what he wanted. When he pushed back, threatened and harmed their members, they’d done their due diligence and expelled him. They didn’t expel him hard enough. He was a singular being. He was no match for an entire coven.

But they underestimated him and his anger. Now these innocent and ignorant men and women were going to murder him after a a spurned fellow exposed them as witches after siccing several demons into their homes.

Jude found comfort in knowing that most of the coven escape the attack that happened at dawn. They couldn’t bury their dead, for the dead were now ashes. He stayed behind to make sure there was no one left behind. Now he was standing here, torches waiting for the signal, sweat running down the small of his back and the space behind his knees that his trousers didn’t touch.

The pastor was done giving the town his sermon about witchcraft. The crowd cheered and praised the Lord. Fire started below him and his throat began to close up. The witch that did this, Adam, stood at the very back of it, watching with gleaming vindication. Through his fear, Jude glared. This disquieted the townspeople, thinking he was glaring at them. He pitied them for falling for Adam’s lies. With other trials all around Salem, Jude knew he’d be wasting his breath defending himself.

“The coven that my parents carried, and their parents created, may be broken but we are not finished,” Jude announced as heat began to permeate the wood beneath his feet. Before the pastor could interrupt him, he continued, “I promise you, this is not the end. We will not end. My coven will become stronger, mark my words. Our magic will pool until it will overflow upon the firstborns of the leaders of our three factions. Together, they will be the greatest force of good the universe will ever know. They will be known as the Charmed Ones. They will undo everything that you and your descendants and your demons will do. You will never win ever again.” Adam walked away, seemingly unfazed. Jude knew better.

His trousers had caught on fire. Searing smoke curled around him. His flesh screamed as he screamed into the dreary, morning air.

* * *

 

Derek Seigerson woke with a start. His toes tingled with a warmth that didn’t come from fuzzy feelings. The dream was the most vivid it had ever been. He thought nothing of it when it first began. He thought they were some sort of weird sex dream because he was so sweaty every time it ended. As they got clearer, Derek recognized the anguish that colored the edges. Soon, he could hear the voices, smell the smoke, and taste the dried blood on his lips. The night before, it was like he was watching it from behind a thick pane of glass. Today, it was a clear as a college lecture.

He sat up, raked a hand through his hair, and took a deep breath. Outside was the same dreary morning. He couldn’t shake the fact that this was the same hour as Jude’s first burn. There were no clocks in Salem at that time, but he knew. And that meant something.

His parents and sister were already eating breakfast. His mother greeted him, his father kept scrolling through his iPad Pro, his sister murmured a spell that turned the milk of her cereal purple.

“Amanda, no magic at the table,” Melinda Seigerson said. Amanda pouted and the milk turned white again. “Derek, dear, you look pale. Did you sneak out again last night?” Ernest smirked and, though she was faced away from him, Melinda hit him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “Don’t encourage him.”

Derek would’ve found it amusing had the sensation of rope digging into his skin disappeared when he climb down the stairs. “No, I was home all night.” Ever since the dreams started, he decided it was best that he didn’t wake up in a random girl’s place. “I think...I’ve been having visions.” His parents went still. Amanda kept eating cereal. “Except they were about the past. Not like the premonitions I’ve been getting from time to time.”

“What have you been seeing?” Ernest leaned on the table.

“Jude Whittaker being burned at the stake. The prophecy about the Charmed Ones.” Ernest and Melinda shared a look. Derek didn’t know what to make of it.

“How often?” Ernest prompted.

“Every night the last week or so. The most recent one was also the most vivid.”

“Did you have any more of those?”

Derek mulled it over. “I have been getting premonitions whenever I hear this song that’s been huge the whole summer. I keep smelling saltwater, seeing the pride flag, and that song,” he answered. “I’m not sure what that means just yet. Is this the universe’s way of telling me that this is my first charge?” It was what their family, their little coven, had been doing all these years after all. Finding witches in need, bringing them in for training, providing support if they need some magical artefact guarded—all that fun stuff.

Derek figured that though these “Charmed Ones” were the most powerful witches to exist, they still needed to come into their own. With a force of good like that, things that lurked and thrived in the darkness would want to snuff it out before it was actualized. It made sense. Derek had been training for this for a while now on top of doing his Master’s Degree to take over the family business that made them money. Maybe they’d just been born. Derek balked at the thought of protecting infants. Failure would become all the more tragic. He deflected the anxiety by picturing them as hot, open-minded women around his age. That soothed him for a moment.

Ernest held Melinda’s hand for support. Usually, it was the other way around. Usually it was when Derek was being difficult and he was going to get yelled at. Or when Amanda turned all her shoes into snakes. Derek had an inkling that he made the wrong assumption somewhere.

“Derek.” Ernest sighed. “There’s something we need to tell you.”

* * *

 

Logan Wright didn’t want to be here on this campaign. His stepmother was agreeable enough but this whole situation wasn’t something he wanted to be dragged into. He didn’t want to be a trophy to be toted around. That was Michelle’s job. He didn’t know how she could stand it. He was promised it was going to be over as soon as they would win. He was promised he wouldn’t have to go home for any holiday except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. He was threatened to pay for his law school tuition himself. He figured it was worth it. But being used as a way to sway the queer voters towards his Republican father’s side for vice-presidency was more demeaning than he thought. All he was going to get anyway was the white voters. Them being the perfect blond family would’ve worked in the fifties or sixties. After the Obamas, Logan doubted it was going to convince much. Plus, his father’s faux acceptance hurt more than his outright disapproval.

“Oh maybe you just haven’t found the right girl, Logan,” one of the wives said at this small brunch gathering. Logan narrowed his eyes. He wondered if he should mention how her husband was finding the right girl too last night. Michelle, who sat beside him, put a hand on his arm, as if to calm him down. “Where is it you go to school again? I can definitely find you just the woman. She’s a hoot. Her mom has thrown her at many a gay and she convinced them to—”

Logan flung his hand up to the woman’s face. She froze. Every conversation fell silent. Around him, mouths were open mid word. The mimosas stopped mid pour. A fleck of spit from a graying investor was mid spray. Outside, birds continued to glide by. Logan sighed, enjoying the peace for a time. Then he gestured at John, willing him out the magic.

“And then he said—wait.” His face turned pink faster than Logan expected. “John Logan Wright the Third, what the hell did I say about using magic at these kinds of things?! What if somebody walked in?!”

“I don’t want to talk to this woman.” Logan nodded at her. The air around her smelled like sparkling wine.

John closed his eyes and sighed as he opened them. “That’s the governor’s wife and she asked specifically to sit beside you.”

“Yeah, to pimp out this girl who seems to be great at converting gay guys.” John inhaled but Logan continued. “You’re lucky just froze the room instead of asking her if the girl had truly converted those poor men or if she’d brought them to a conversion camp. You know, the one her husband’s family owns?”

“You’re being a child.” John shook his head.

“Look, I’m trying to make this as painless as possible,” Logan said. “If I listen to this woman talk to me for more than ten more seconds, I might flip this table over. So unless you want a scandal prior to you and your running mate’s visit to San Francisco for Pride…”

John glowered and huffed. “Fine. But you have to make me finish this conversation I’m having with this man before I bail you out.”

Logan gestured to Michelle, who gasped and glanced at the room in awe. “Your father will—” she glanced at John “—oh. Well, this is preferrable, dear. If you only heard what she was saying to him.”

“Michelle, please make up an excuse to get me out of this brunch,” Logan said.

Logan knew he had her at “please”  from the way her face softened into a happy expression close to tears. “Of course.” She went back to her original position. Begrudgingly, so did John. “Ready when you are.”

The room was alive again as if nothing happened. Michelle leaned over and stopped the woman from speaking, talking about how she’d forgotten certain lady items in their hotel room and her peach pencil skirt might have suffered after some leakage. Logan’s stomach turned at the thought, first of lady items, then of lady parts. They’d both left the room with Logan acting as a shield to cover her behind from supposed embarrassment.

When they reached the elevator, Logan eased away from Michelle. She smiled up at him. “You didn’t have to come with me,” he said.

“I don’t mind. Do you want to go around and shop? Oh, I saw the cutest Barista at the Starbucks down the road. Maybe you could, you know…” She waggled her upper body.

Logan sighed then shrugged. He figured this was better than the original situation.

* * *

 

Julian Larson shouldn’t be going out on his own, not with that stalker lurking about. His managers said so. His security team said so. His mother said so, most vehemently. Even his father, who he thought didn’t care about him or what he did that much, said so. He didn’t understand why. It wasn’t like he couldn’t defend himself. The threats he was getting was from a stalker, not some demon waiting to consume his flesh and soul. That he’d understand, and he’d hide behind all the necessary protective wards until they figure out a way to vanquish the demon. A human threat was beneath him. Even though the human were a witch, his knees weren’t quaking. A witch powerful enough to ward off their tracking spells, Dolce reminded. Julian still wasn’t intimidated. Any above average witch could do it.

But he conceded. He did have a sense of self-preservation. Human threats, magical or not, could still take him by surprise. Spells were unpredictable. Drugs could be placed in every plate of food or glass of drink. He wasn’t a mind reader. He couldn’t see into the future. He could lift a car over his head with his magic but that wasn’t useful if he were incapacitated in some way. Plus, the threats were getting more and more possessive and creepy. The stalker had claimed ownership. He compromised more than one security-laden house. He left flowers that were, after checking, not covered in magic. Now Julian was in an apartment building, hidden with spells and covered in surveillance.

Still, it was pride month. He was in a San Francisco apartment. He couldn’t sit there and watch the world turn colorful below him just because there was a chance he’d be attacked. The stalker couldn’t find him here. The apartment was unknowable except for those he told about it. He was in the city, though that was expected. He was filming something here. He wasn’t going to put his entire life on hold. Sacrificing his social life was bad enough.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The voice came as orbs of light formed together to reveal his whitelighter, Clark Sawyer.

“Figures,” Julian muttered then slammed the door. The orbs followed him in.

“I’m sure you understand why I can’t let you go out right now.” Clark walked after him to his room.

“Yes, unfortunately,” Julian retorted. “But I’m bored and I’ve been good for the last three months. You didn’t have to intervene until tonight so that should at least allow me a night out.” Julian unlatched his window.

“What are you doing?” Clark’s eyebrows furrowed. Julian climbed up the ledge without breaking eye contact. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Having fun.” He raised his hand, throwing Clark into his closet. He started to orb himself out Julian’s telekinetic hold but Julian accounted for this. His fingers curled toward one another, keeping Clark together. He bounced around the field. His magic strained against Clark’s. He used both hands to keep him at bay. Julian wrapped him in a box, field on top of another and another until he was just a ball of light. That wasn’t going to hold him forever, but it gave him just enough time.

“Julian! I’ve already notified back-up!” The ball of light pulsed.

“Please, as if any of your bandmates could handle me better than you can. I’ll be back by midnight, I promise!” Above him, two streams of light started to converge. Below, two other whitelighters were orbing into place. Across the street, there was a crowd of partygoers in glitter and rainbows. Julian shrouded himself in a quick glamour that would blur him against the night sky before propelling himself from the sixth floor.

“Julian,” Mikey shouted after him.

“You fucker,” Sinny echoed.

With his newfound freedom, Julian whooped. The partygoers, though not knowing where the noise came from, whooped with him. The air whirled and whistled around him. His stomach pressed into his diaphragm. His heart was beating against his spine. City lights zipped in his peripheral and the sidewalk was coming at him in full force.

Julian threw his hands in front of him. He willed gravity to loosen its hold on him by pushing back. He felt the concrete as though he were already touching it himself. He made himself a cushion the same way he made Clark the box. Field over field.

He landed with a muted thud. The shock rocked his nerves around his joints but he shook that off. He put a new glamour on himself. One that will keep him from being recognized. He blended into the crowd. There were no lights following him. They knew better than to show magic around humans, even if they were a little inebriated.

Clark was going to be mad, so were the others. As long as he was back when he promised safe and sound, not only would he prove that he could take care of himself, but that he should be able to go out from time to time. He didn’t like the whole princess in a tower thing. He could be his own knight in shining armor.

If they didn’t want him to escape, they should’ve bound his powers.

* * *

 

Logan had tipped off a few tabloids, using a voice changing spell, that the senator’s son was going to be out and about in pride festivities. It wasn’t like he was going against the campaign’s wishes. They wanted him to be their gay beacon. The gay that brought the gay votes. This was the first time he was going to enjoy his role in the grand scheme of his father’s need for supporters. He could already imagine the tantrum John was going to throw. He wasn’t even planning on anything scandalous but being at a club at all would be seen as detrimental. He almost wished he was a girl so the media would be more vicious. He didn’t like that it would be but anything to give his father some consequences to make it seem like he cared for the queer community just because he had a gay son.

If his father wanted gay, he was getting gay.

Partying wasn’t really his thing. He didn’t like the rainbow crop top he wore. He didn’t like the people who groped him. He didn’t the sheer volume of sights, smells, and sounds. Alcohol was fine. He preferred to drink it amongst friends than strangers. It took him several shots of tequila, three of which he did off of a drag queen, before he got used to it.

A lot of people were taking photos of him. They talked smack about his father, he returned the favor. They shared laughter. Then drinks. Then a kiss though it didn’t amount to anything. Logan had lost himself in a sea of sweaty bodies and music. His face was buzzing with what he drank. He sang to a song he didn’t knew. His father and what he was doing for his father fell into the background as he began to dance his night away.

Someone had brought him up to the bar, introduced him as the senator’s son. Some booed, some cheered, a few whistled. Someone shouted that his dad was such a daddy. Logan would’ve scowled at this. Instead he laughed.

“Vote Wright!” Logan parroted sarcastically then took a shot. He passed a couple hundred to the bartender. “Let me buy your votes. Shots for everyone!”

The night got handsier after that. And, though it seemed impossible earlier, he cared even less about how this could affect the campaign.

* * *

 

Julian knew him. Not in the same way that he knew his face from all the news coverage surrounding the election but in a more nagging and uncertain way. They were friends. Long ago in a memory far away were those bright green eyes. Friends was a strong word, Julian decided, but there wasn’t any other word for it when they were younger. They ran around a yard together with a third boy. They fingerpainted a table and their parents yelled at them. Julian threw pudding at him once because he broke a crayon. That was the extent of their friendship.

It was one of those situations where from time to time, he thought about the friends he made as a toddler. He wondered where they were, what they were doing, and how they were. He never cared enough to follow up. At least for this one, he knew. It was nice seeing him smile. Every time he was on camera beside his dad and stepmom, he remained straight-lipped and impassive. Almost indifferent. He would frown more often than smile. Here, in this club, his grin was wide and unhindered. His skin glistened with sweat under the strobe lights. Men threw themselves at him. Julian couldn’t blame them. Messy little Logan Wright grew up into a messy stud.

Julian joined the fray, offering a shot of jaeger. Logan took it right away. Julian allowed himself a shot. Logan squinted at him. No doubt the glamour was working. In his state, Logan probably saw less. He’d remember less too. A barb of regret appeared in his chest. He would’ve liked to remind Logan of their childhood. In the middle of the dance floor, with undulating bodies everywhere, and music loud enough to drown the sound of his own voice, wasn’t the place or the time.

Logan’s mouth was moving. “What’s that?!” Julian yelled into his ear.

“I said you have nice lips!” Logan did the same. The skin below Julian’s ear tingled when his breath touched the sweat there. Julian felt the blush rising from his neck. “Do you want to dance?” Julian nodded. Logan held him by the waist and led him to the middle of the dance floor.

When the dancing crowd meshed their bodies together, a rush ran through Julian. It was a crash of a wave over his head. It was a heady sensation that numbed him for a second. His heart began to palpitate to an erratic beat. Logan hooked his thumbs under the hem of Julian’s pants. His lips ghosted over Julian’s shoulder as their hips maneuvered to the bass drop. Julian worried for a moment if the bartender had slipped something in the drink he had before the shot. Then it had passed. He chalked that up as his body getting used to alcohol again after months of abstinence.

Julian danced with him for two songs. Their bodies hadn’t separated at all. Julian watched him before joining. No one had kept his attention for this long and pride sang through him as Logan ground their hips together. He threw his head back while Logan mouthed along his neck. Pleasure shot through him when Logan squeezed his ass with both hands and fixed him with a stare that could melt bones.. Julian was at his mercy, for all he cared. The months without a hook up burned in his blood. He ached to be touched with less clothes on. After glancing at his watch, he figured he’d only be late for thirty minutes.

Logan had the same idea. Their fingers laced together. His free hand cupped Julian’s ass again one last time before bringing him away from the dance floor. The hallway where the bathrooms were was significantly cooler. Logan slammed him into the far wall, their mouths meeting in a fervent kiss. Julian wasted no time opening his mouth and accepting Logan’s tongue. Logan wound his arms around Julian. Julian couldn’t move. He didn’t want to. If the hard outline Logan had pressed against him was any indication, he wouldn’t be moving straight for a long time.

Logan’s hands slid up his body, causing a shiver to sprint up and down his pulse. Emboldened, Julian began to unbuckle Logan’s belt. That earned a smile. “Eager?” Logan shouted into Julian’s ear before starting to press kisses along his jaw.

“Very,” Julian admitted. “Very, very,” he repeated when he managed to slip his hand under Logan’s boxer briefs. Logan growled into his skin. Julian gripped the base, marveling at his girth. There was that rush again, spearing through him for a moment. Anticipation, Julian decided. Exhilaration. It was nothing more than his libido cheering for a craving satisfied. Julian dipped himself in it. He’d almost gone under except he heard someone scream.

He paused. It wasn’t the kind of scream that the DJ asked for the club to do. It was singular then it was everywhere. It wasn’t harmonized. He couldn’t even pay attention to Logan’s on his throat. He tried to focus on what he’d heard. It became easier when the music got cut off, only to be replaced by the panic of the crowd.

Logan stopped too. “What’s happening?” He slurred into Julian’s skin.

Julian suppressed a shiver. “I don’t know.” Then a demon shimmered into view with a fireball at the ready. “Now I do!” He shoved Logan out of the way and deflected the flames back. It singed the demon but did nothing more except agitate him. A bigger fireball came into view. Just as the demon threw it, no doubt causing the hallway to burn in the process, it froze. Not in hesitation or in doubt. It was like he was a movie put on pause. Even the fireball was staying in place. Julian glanced at his hands, wondering if the powers that be gave him new abilities.

“That’s one big ball,” Logan said, slumped on the wall. Another demon shimmered into space, this time with a glowing athame and hurled it at his direction. Before Julian could deflect it, the weapon stopped. The demon had turned then stopped. All after Logan gestured at them. He shouldn’t have been too surprised that Logan was a witch. Standing by his dad and stepmom would make anyone seem mundane. He must’ve gotten it from his birth mother’s end.

“You probs shouldn’t have seen that. I have to wipe your mems now,” Logan moved towards Julian, murmuring a spell that could seriously backfire with how he was saying it.

“Can we do that outside this murder hallway?” Jullian suggested, pointing at the fireball and athame.

Logan burped. “Okay.” He pushed Logan ahead of him. The club was in dangerous chaos. Logan stumbled towards the sea of people as flames began to devour the bar, the lights, and a few couches. Julian his body clench, a mix of fear and anger bleeding down his throat. He turned to the hallway. He spun both demons towards one another. He braced himself. Neither demon moved. He drew them closer, pushing and pulling. More sweat beaded along his shoulders. It wasn’t like moving regular objects. Logan’s magic had some weight to it. He sighed when they we finally aimed at one another.

He turned. The hallway exploded. He was thrown across the room and hit a pillar before he could do anything about it. The last thing he saw was fire being flung at the ceiling, blooming outward faster as though the ceiling was covered in gasoline. The last thing he heard was more screaming.

* * *

 

Derek was relieved he didn’t have to explain why there was a huge tome in his luggage. The agent did take it out of his carry on. He was met with raised eyebrows, disbelief, and a barely concealed chuckle. Had he gone on the earlier flight, he would’ve gotten a chattier one. Had he put the book in his luggage, it would’ve been lost in transit. He’d seen all these as he planned to uproot his life and move to California. It was more of a “told to”  rather than “planned” but it took planning to do as he was told.

Most of his stuff was coming via courier a few days later. It was going to be delivered to an apartment in Los Angeles that had three rooms, just in case. That apartment had been under his name for years and his parents never told him about it.

He wasn’t told a lot of things. He tried not to get too upset about it. Someone had to be the Charmed Ones. He just thought he’d be protecting them. He also hoped they’d be hot girls, preferably triplets, but he got the opposite of all that. He decided he should avoid asking favors from the universe so it wouldn’t fuck him over like this again.

Still, he prayed they would get along like they used to.

Derek, of course, didn’t remember them all that much. He knew he hung out with two other boys when he was younger but he couldn’t remember the details of their faces. He knew them through screens. Julian had a Wikipedia page, multiple fansites, and social media. Logan had a Twitter that had one tweet that said “This handle is mine lol.” Upon seeing this tweet, Derek had a vision of Logan dancing in a club with a rainbow crop top and drinking a shot. The taste of jaeger lingered on Derek’s tongue afterwards. He was also mildly horny. He couldn’t understand why.

There was not a lot of Logan after that. Nothing that mattered to Derek. Nothing that could tell him what he was working with in terms of Charmed Ones. There were no visions that told him the extent of Logan’s knowledge of magic. At least Julian had both Travis and Dolce. Cordelia had disappeared after the coven was massacred. She was alive, Melinda and Ernest knew for certain, but shaken by the carnage. They thought she’d bound her powers and decided to live normal under a new identity. As far as Derek knew, Logan had little to no idea how to use his magic.

Derek checked his phone after he got a cup of bad coffee. Flying a red eye in economy wasn’t fun experience for anyone. He didn’t predict how much turbulence there was going to be

There was one message from his dad. _Check the news when you land immediately. I’ve already contacted a whitelighter._

“Fuck.” Derek scrambled to Google, typing Julian Larson first.

When there was nothing more than the regular movie deal and dating rumor, he moved to Logan. His knees weakened when he saw the words “fire,” “shooting,” and “critical.” He was relieved to see Logan was alive enough to become a meme—Photogenic Savior. He was in that rainbow crop top still, though it was singed and blackened in areas. In one picture, he was carrying someone out over his shoulders. In the next, he was giving someone CPR. The one after that showed him bringing two more out of the smoke. All of them with his hair tousled in a perfect swath, his green eyes catching the light, and his jaw clenched the way models did. It was ridiculous. The only ugly picture of him was when Senator Wright appeared and he scowled then proceeded to vomit at his leather shoes.

Nevertheless, Ernest sent that text for a reason. With zero updates on Julian—nothing on Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat—Derek continued to fret about his future as a Charmed One. Julian always had an update every day. One tweet, at least. He hadn’t announced that he was going off the grid or unplugging, which he had done so in the past. He glanced at the clock. It was close to midnight. His last instagram story had reached its time limit.

Derek tried not to overthink it. Julian had a life of his own. He must’ve been busy with a shoot or with that album he kept teasing the last few months. Ernest could’ve just told him to check the news so he could find Logan faster, and, by extension, Julian. Orbing with a whitelighter certainly beat renting a car and dragging the Book of Shadows around.

The hairs on the back of his head stood in attention. A murmuring unease trailed at the base. He turned to find two men walking towards him in urgency. He knew them, the same way he knew Julian. Wikipedia, fansites, and social media. He didn’t listen to their music unless a girl he liked did. They were taller than he expected.

“I’m Corey, this is Raven,” one said. Derek shook their hands. Any words after this weren’t going to be good words.

“We can’t find Julian,” Raven said.

His destiny was off to a great start. He wished there was a shot of vodka in his coffee. “Take me to Logan.”


	2. ...Death and Life.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julian tries to save himself. Logan and Derek catch up in the nick of time.

Logan passed out in the car ride back to the hotel. He vomited again when he got to his room where an advil and a cold pitcher of water waited, no doubt Michelle’s doing. She was actually happy to see that he was alive. Her eyes were puffy and red and wet. She hugged him harder than she’d ever hugged him. She was stronger than he expected. It surprised him so much. In his groggy state, he hugged her back. She started crying more. 

Any near death experience could’ve sobered anyone up. With the addition of watching people have their own and saving them from near death experiences, Logan was already having a hangover as if it were noon, not midnight. The only thing that made it better was him puking over John’s shoes. He deserved it after giving the fakest “I’m so happy you’re alive” speech in front of many cameras. 

It wasn’t his aching head that kept him awake, though Michelle insisted he get some rest. He kept thinking about why it happened. 

This wasn’t the first attempt on his life. It had happened when he was younger. He could remember his dad holding him close as the house was attacked and his mother fended the assailants off. This was one of the last memories he had of Cordelia. Then he could remember him, Michelle, and John being taken away by whitelighters after a demon had come during a summer in between high school classes. He was lucky his freezing power had manifested then. This had forced John to let him learn more about magic despite being against his son being more of a freak than he already was after he’d come out. There was that attack at his dorm room during his senior year. Then a few times while he was out and about as an undergrad. By then, the whitelighters and a few witch tutors had given him enough knowledge to fend for himself. The jiu jitsu black belt was a great help too. 

He knew he was powerful. The freezing power, if harnessed elsewhere, could cause a lot of damage. He thought the less savory beings had learned not to mess with him. That he was not a witch worth the trouble or annihilation. Then this. 

That attack at the club was the biggest one he had so far. There were more than five attackers. He wasn’t too sure if they were warlocks, demons, or both. It wasn’t quite like them to play nice with one another, and not like them to come in what could be construed as an organized team. He didn’t have any potions on him but he did have a few choice spells for moments like these. He was lucky they didn’t backfire. His face was numb with all that he drank that night. The spells wouldn’t have turned out right or done what it was intended for. It slowed them down at least. Enough for Logan to get innocents out of the burning building. He’d left the frozen enemies to burn when he was sure he had everyone out. He persuaded the responders to leave them alone. Again, with a compulsion spell he’d been working on. Again, he could’ve jumbled their heads for a few days. He didn’t care enough to check in. 

There was that man he was making out with in the hallway he’d frozen those two demons. Logan was sure he managed to finish the memory spell but he wasn’t sure his enunciation was perfect. One wrong word and he could cause that man some full blown amnesia. He hadn’t seen him among the survivors. He hoped for the best. The best being he’d find an amnesiac on the loose then he’d fix it. 

Logan wondered what had changed. His head was still pounding with club music, he figured he might as well exacerbate it with the theories surrounding the attack. 

It could’ve been meant for someone else. Some other witch in the club they were targeting. There were plenty of witch practitioners in San Francisco. And Pride always had an auspicious energy surrounding it. There could’ve been an artifact in the club. It wasn’t the most sound theory but since magic defied a lot of logic, Logan considered it possible. Surely they weren’t there for him. Surely there were other witches like him with the same abilities to harass. Logan knew he was above average, even for someone who learned magic from varying mentors, but he wasn’t protecting anything, he wasn’t any different from the next witch aside from skill, and he tried his best to only piss off humans like his dad and not the forces of evil. There was that one warlock a while back, but he was very pretty and Logan didn’t know he was a warlock until it was too late. Now that warlock was physically sick whenever they saw a blond person and Logan did his best to do a magic check at every date. 

He sat up, groaning. The headache wasn’t leaving. Sleep wasn’t coming to his rescue. He could hear Michelle and John arguing at the end of the hallway. He was too tired to freeze them. John would be angrier in the end if he did. Logan wasn’t in the state to handle anything. 

As he was drinking straight from the pitcher (he wasn’t in the state to pour anything either), a soft blue light appeared in his periphery. He sighed but continued to drink. The whitelighters in his life were used to seeing him in more pathetic positions. 

“This is what I have to work with right now?” A biting voice cracked through the silence. 

“Forgive me for drinking water in a nonconventional way. I kinda had a rough night. You’re lucky I’m not trying to drink it away.” Logan turned, expecting one whitelighter but finding three. His stomach turned and quivered with leftover alcohol. “Aren’t you the guys from Haven?” 

“Surprise, we’re whitelighters,” Raven, explained. Corey waved.

The one in the middle, the one who wasn’t part of the band, stepped forward. From his scowl, Logan recognized him as the inconsiderate asshole. He returned the scowl. “I’m not. Hi, I’m Derek Seigerson and I’ve come to serve you your destiny.” He stuck out his hand. Logan took it out of habit, not because he wanted to. 

“Care to be more specific or are you still enjoying being high and mighty?” Logan asked, drinking from the pitcher again. His headache was screaming for reprieve. It didn’t look he was getting any tonight. 

Derek’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll choose to ignore that.” His hand tightened around Logan’s in an attempt to assert his dominance but Logan had too much of that in his life. If John taught him nothing else, at least he learned never to let anyone intimidate him with a handshake. 

Then it hit him. 

Static zipped up his arm. The sensation crawled around his knuckles, lingering for a moment before it became a bolt of lightning.  Derek’s eyes widened. A dizzying buzz swirled his head and replaced the ache. Both their grasps loosened with a glimmering hum forming in the space. Logan’s heart slowed then jumped to a drumline. He gasped and the air tasted less like stale vomit and alcohol. It was fresh though not in the way of breath mints. This freshness was larger than what his lungs could initially handle. It had a weight, a charge, a taste unlike anything he’d tasted. It sparkled. 

“Now wasn’t that something?” Derek held his hand aloft as if it had turned into a different hand. He shook his head. 

Logan stammered. “What—”

“That was the Power of Three,” Derek answered. 

“That answers everything then,” Logan retorted. And it did. In a way. It explained the attack. 

Derek grimaced. “Forgive me for providing an initial response, your majesty.” 

Anger squirmed in his chest. “There’s only two of us.”

“Congratulations, you can count.” 

He noted that all the aches in his system had eased. “Am I going to have to punch you or are you going to give me an explanation?” Certainly, hitting Derek would be easy now that he wasn’t on the verge of puking at every motion. 

“No need to go ‘off with your head’ on me.” Derek raised his hands. “You and I are two out of three prophesied powerful witches collectively known as the Charmed Ones.” 

He hated that something sounding so whimsical and silly made sense. That explained the high profile whitelighters. It explained the attack in the club. It was the only way to explain what happened between the two of them. It wasn’t love at first sight. Logan was familiar with it and Derek hadn’t given him that. Derek had that undeniable straight bro vibe to him. It was the hat. 

“How?” Logan asked. 

“Your mom was Cordelia Wright,” Derek started. 

Logan couldn’t help but chime in. “I doubt that’s her name now but sure.” 

Derek nodded. “She led part of the Stanton Coven. It was founded centuries ago and it used to be the most powerful coven in North America until it was decimated by a group of warlocks two decades ago. In Salem, a similar event happened and the leader at the time had prophesied three firstborns of each leader to become the most powerful force of good the world had ever known. It was also a curse on the first warlock to ever try and destroy the coven. More of a promise really but curses run parallel to promises. Him and his own would never succeed in the end and we’d undo all the bad he’d done and his descendants will do. That did them no help when we were born. Someone must’ve known or found out because the coven is all but gone and our parents almost died saving us. A lot of others did.” 

Logan tried to snatch what little fragments of memory surrounding Cordelia to corroborate the information Derek was giving. He didn’t think Cordelia cared enough to risk her life for him and yet there it was. There was that attack right before she’d left. He remembered gatherings that she brought him to that his parents would often yell at each other about. He couldn’t remember seeing Derek. There were friends he played with but he couldn’t picture Derek as a boy. 

“So, we’re the ones supposed to clean up,” Logan said, flat and plain. 

“Looks like it,” Derek replied. 

“Your parents are still alive?” Logan had to ask. 

“Yeah.” Though it was a wound that already scabbed over and healed, the knowledge of Derek’s parents staying together and staying in his life made Logan pick at it. Cordelia left, they hadn’t. Logan hated the jealousy that wriggled in the bridge of his nose. 

“And our third half?” He continued. “Who are they?” 

“Julian Larson-Armstrong,” Derek answered. 

Logan’s brows rose. “The actor? Dolce Larson and Travis Armstrong’s son?” 

“Take it you’re a fan?” Derek asked with sharp-edged amusement. 

“No.” Logan could imagine himself smashing the pitcher into Derek’s head. The muscles in his arms were coiled, prepared for it. “I just haven’t been living under a rock.” Logan wouldn’t have expected it. The was famous enough among the regular folk, it almost seemed unfair that he was also a big deal in the magical world as well. Logan was fretful of how big his head must’ve been. He didn’t think Dolce or Travis would’ve hid the whole Charmed One thing from him. He must’ve been insufferable. Coupled with the man standing in front of him, he wondered if he was going to kill them first before any force of evil could. 

There was that flick of jealousy again. Travis and Dolce had their Hollywood divorce but they were still in Julian’s life. Logan didn’t even know if Cordelia were still alive. John hadn’t given him any indication. 

“So are we going to Hollywood now?” 

Derek’s lips tightened into a straight line. “No. Julian’s been taken. He was in the same club as you were when the attack happened. No one can find him. Not even the whitelighters.” He nodded to two behind him. Logan tried to recall seeing Julian in the club but then realized he was too drunk to remember much of anything before the attack. “We have to find him or evil wins. Literally. Dramatic as it sounds.” 

“No pressure,” Logan muttered. “How do you know he isn’t already dead?” 

“You’d know,” Corey said, the beats of his heart turning crooked for a moment. “We’d all know. A magical being like a Charmed One? Your birth was monumental enough. Imagine your destiny cut short.” 

Logan’s throat tightened. “How do we plan on searching for him? If whitelighters can’t even find him, what makes you think we could?” 

Derek reached for his wrist. The thrum of power that harmonized between them didn’t flare the same way it did during initial contact but it was present. It filled him and it pushed against the confines of the room. “This. The Power of Two should work well enough if we’re looking for the Power of Three.” 

Logan nodded. He wasn’t jumping for joy to know that there was a rhyme and reason behind the attacks in his life. The idea that Cordelia left because of him wasn’t helping either. But he wasn’t selfish enough to want to run away from this. “I’ve got some emergency spell materials in my carry-on. I’ll print a map of San Francisco. We can cast a honing spell and work our way from there.” 

Derek huffed. “Thank god you’re not incompetent. Raven, Corey, get us something of Julian’s. Preferably something from his body.” 

* * *

 

Julian’s back hurt and he was sure it wasn’t from having sex. Where he lied wasn’t helping. The surface was rough and smelled of upturned soil. There was a layer of grime on his body that told him he’d been dragged at some point. A hint of smoke lingered in his nose but he didn’t remember where it came from. 

He jumped out the window to escape his whitelighters. He joined a crowd. Everything was jumbled after that. A fire was involved but he didn’t know where that fire started. There was some alcohol though he wasn’t sure which bar he got it from. He knew that popular summer song was playing, though with the air time it was getting, that memory could come from any time during the last two months. There was a man. He couldn’t remember his face but he remembered the feeling of him. 

After steeling himself for a harsh morning, no doubt he’d partied too hard and passed out somewhere he’d see social media dragging him for, Julian opened his eyes. Of all the places he could’ve blacked out at, a cave wasn’t one of them. He’d woken up in pools with make-up on. He’d rolled out of a bed with a popular girl group tangled around him. He’d even spent a night or two in jail, but this hurt way more. The common denominator was that he was always near civilization. He didn’t know caves this deep were even available for the public. 

Twenty feet above him was a cloudy sky. Often, he would find comfort at the sight. More so now, it being a way out. He could clear that jump easy with his powers. He pushed himself upright, tilting his chin away from the ground. Rain wasn’t falling. It didn’t smell of petrichor, though the clouds looked heavy enough for it to have at least rained recently. In fact, they looked off. Julian couldn’t put his finger on it. The wind must’ve been blowing hard. The clouds were rolling by fast, it was like watching waves from underwater. Yet, there was no howl or echo or even whisper of wind. While the world above him moved and changed, it remained silent. 

Silence was never a good thing when one woke up outside of the norm. 

“Good morning, Julian.” And an unfamiliar voice saying his name in a familiar way did not help the unease that took root in his spine. 

It was a man, around his age. His smile was almost shy, but Julian chose not to find that comforting at the least. He was broader and taller than him. Most of the time, this wouldn’t matter to Julian. This was not like most times. He could sense the glamor around him. It was lain on too thick, making it clear that it wasn’t his forte. He was standing at a strange distance from a natural arch in the cave. He wasn’t in San Francisco anymore, that was for sure and certain. Clark would’ve found him by now. Any other time, any other place, he would appear with tired disapproval then orb him out when he was finished letting Julian suffer the consequences. Clark wasn’t malicious enough to let it go this far. Sinny or Raven, maybe, but Julian was starting to feel distress starting to cry out in his chest. None of them would let it go this far.

Julian composed himself. “Good morning.” No use panicking now. There was an exit but it seemed too easy. He had to account for any magical fields that would force him to stay. “May I know where the fuck I am?” 

The shy smile widened. Julian maintained his gaze. He wasn’t going to show the fear that was clawing its way up. “You’re here with me. I finally got the chance to bring you here earlier tonight and I am so pleased. You have no idea how hard it is to keep oneself hidden in the human world while being always a step behind you.” Julian’s stomach stank and turned itself inside out as he came to realize this being was the stalker he’d had for months. “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Adam, your biggest fan,” the man said with a short half-bow.

“That’s great and all, Adam, but most fans don’t drag me to caves,” Julian replied. 

“I suppose not,” the man shrugged. “But I’m not like most fans.” 

“Care to elaborate?” 

“No. I’ve seen that animated superhero movie you did that got the villain to monologue. That’s not going to work on me.” With a quick wave, a tray of food and water appeared by him. He’d never seen anything less appetizing. “Eat up. It’s not drugged, magically or otherwise. That’s not til later.” He turned around and began walking away. “Just know that when this is over, you’ll be mine and you’re going to be happy about it.” 

That made him want to eat or drink anything less. “My parents don’t negotiate.” 

“Who says I need your parents for this?” He chuckled then disappeared from view. 

Julian didn’t bother to check the food for magic. There were ways to hide it. Make it small enough to not register and then have it react in the body, Dolce warned many times while he was growing up. He levitated the spoon, relieved his magic wasn’t bound or taken. Many have tried. If he was allowed his magic, there was no way this wasn’t a trap of some sort. For whom, he wasn’t sure. His parents were the obvious target but Adam didn’t seem like the type to lie about that. He was aiming for someone more than that. There wasn’t anyone more than him or his parents. They were all each other hand in terms of magic. Had this been a regular kidnapping, there were plenty of people to extort. 

Julian propelled the spoon at the archway. The air turned translucent and shot the spoon back into the cave. Julian reached for the spoon again and threw it upward. It wasn’t deflected. That exit gave him little comfort. No magical captor would make it that easy. 

His stomach begged for him to eat and his throat began to itch. He could make that jump but he could sense the strain his night was putting on his magic. If he was going to make an escape, he was going to have to be smart about what he was going to do next. He wouldn’t get too far. Not if he refused to eat and he wasn’t eating anything Adam gave him. 

He stood slowly. His body protested when he stretched and he ignored its pleas. Taking a deep breath, Julian summoned magic into his hands, building it in his fists. He bent his knees. He opened his hands and pushed against the ground, jumping at the same time. Just as he hit the wall, he pushed again on the wall, twisting himself to face the next wall. His arm caught the ledge as he hit it, knocking the air out of him. He flexed his core to keep himself still. Then he pulled himself up with way too much effort than usual.  

The grass beneath him was withered. A forest of dead trees pierced the ground around him. While most of the trees were in the standard shape, there were plenty near the hole that were contorted into gnarled, shambling shapes. The roots were half-uprooted. The branches were digging into the soil. The trunks were pockmarked with dried gashes. Ash fluttered in what little wind there was. The sky swirled as though threatening to turn into a cyclone even though the air around him was still unlike his heart. 

“Nice view, isn’t it?” Adam asked behind him. The glamor wasn’t there anymore. Julian wasn’t going to turn. “You should see it at night when the stars are out. They’re different stars than what you’re used to so they should be a treat.” 

“Where am I?” 

“With me.” Adam knelt beside him. A hand slithered over his shoulder. His fingers were longer and sharper. The nails ripped his shirt upon contact. Julian wasn’t going to look. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t let anything hurt you.” 

“Then who will protect you?” Before Adam could answer, Julian grabbed Adam’s wrist, lifted, and twisted it. The sound he made was a mix of a rattle, a gurgle, and a growl. Without turning, he knocked Adam away. He could feel the outline of his true form within the magic. The multiple, long limbs, the misshapen head, the talons. 

“Julian, don’t do this,” he rumbled. 

Julian turned and saw a taller form, pale skin stretched over muscle and bone. Two arms pushed him upright while the other two were held up in defense. Adam had barred his long, yellow teeth. Julian completely lost his appetite. “Don’t tell me what to do.” He yanked the boulder behind Adam, hitting him with a harsh crack. Adam hissed at him, limbs scrambling to pick him up again. 

Julian lifted him up over his head and threw him against the opposite ledge. Fire began to bloom around Adam as he fell. Julian raised his arms, his power reaching for every rock in his immediate vicinity. He brought his arms down to the hole with a grunt. The rocks began sliding into it as flames and inhuman shrieks flew out of it. Julian picked a direction and ran. His knees were weak and his head spun but at least he wasn’t being pursued. Not yet. 

* * *

 

Derek didn’t expect how well and easy the honing spell worked. Whenever Derek saw his parents do it, the directions to who or what they were looking for appeared in their head then they followed it the old fashioned way. It was never specific enough for a whitelighter to orb them there. They were tugged toward each step of the destination until they got there. With Logan and Derek, they both saw the destination in their minds straight away. Its path zoomed through their minds like an Instagram timelapse. The names of each street, each exit, to take flashed and burned themselves into their eyes. 

“Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park,” they said in unison. Raven and Corey glanced at one another with matching surprise. Logan and him shared a similar look. Surprise and exhilaration and awe. A smile tugged at Logan’s lips as the spell wore off.

“That’s a hell of a honing spell,” Raven commented. 

“I’ll go tell Clark and the others,” Corey said. “Meet you there.” Then he orbed out. 

“I’ll get some flashlights and I’ll be back,” Raven said then did the same. 

Derek shuffled to his backpack and took out the Book of Shadows, the grimoire of the Stanton Coven. He went for the index in the back where the papers were the newest. It was an addition made before the attack. He thanked the heavens they’d put it in because he would’ve been rifling through these pages for hours. No one making this book thought about alphabetizing anything until the nineteen-twenties. It was similar to the family grimoire, except this held way more information spanning centuries. This was where they got the honing spell template. 

“It’s not a forest demon. It wouldn’t be able to pull any of this off,” Logan said as Derek flipped to the page. “One ambushed me while I was an undergrad. They’re not too smart.” 

“I know that,” Derek replied. “I doubt it could fight back Julian either, but…” He got to a page he skimmed over in the days leading to this one and showed the spread to Logan. It was a hyperrealistic drawing of two forests. The one on top was lush and had whispers of green for the flora. Below it, a mirror imagine of the trees but it was barren, as though a fire had ravaged it. The words under it said “Deadwood Forest.” Logan snorted. “I know it’s the most creatively named area but the person who wrote this was probably from the eighteen hundreds. From what I read, there’s a rip in the dimensions there. The Deadwood isn’t quite the demon world but it’s on the way. That explains why the whitelighters can’t find him or orb to him. He’s not anywhere. The Deadwood is barely a place. An inbetween of sorts.”

“The Upside Down,” Logan said.

“Nerd,” Derek said. Logan bristled.  

“Would it affect our powers in any way if we enter?” 

“No, but eating or consuming anything there would turn you into a tree.” 

“Nerd,” Logan repeated. 

“I’ll get some food and water for him. Go change. It’s going to be a long night.” 

Logan narrowed his eyes and bowed. “As you wish, your majesty,” he added, irritated. Derek turned around without acknowledging the jab. If they were going to get through this night without hitting one another, that would be a magical feat in itself. It wasn’t clear what Logan’s problem was with him but that could wait until after they keep the Power of Three from ending before it could even start. 

The whitelighters came back to take them to the park. A shock of cold hit Derek when they orbed into place. Lights glowed over their heads. The three other members of Haven stood amongst them. Though it’d only been five hours, Clark looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Beside him was Dolce Larson. She wasn’t looking so great either. She did a double take when her eyes met Derek’s then she turned to Logan. 

“I knew this day would come, when your powers would grow enough that it would start seeking one another,” she started, stepping towards them. “I didn’t think it would be in such dire circumstances. We’d planned to have you meet two weeks after Melinda called.” She faced Derek. “After you told them about your vision in Salem. Julian’s schedule was free. I told him we were going on a vacation in Bali then you’d know the story and you three would find a way to bring down the Clavell coven. Then this.” She gestured to the dark forest around them with a humorless chuckle. “I don’t know about you but I’m starting to think old Jude cursed the wrong coven.” 

“I should’ve found him sooner,” Clark mumbled. “I could’ve. But I let him have an hour head start so he could have his fun.” 

Dolce sighed. “Clark, it’s not your fault. Bad decisions run in the coven.” She glanced at Logan, who stiffened beside Derek. “The risk my son took wasn’t as calculated as he thought. He shouldn’t have gone out when he knows he’s being stalked by a witch or a warlock. He could handle himself but I should’ve asked you to keep a closer eye. Now that the Charmed Ones have come to their own, everyone is going to try their best not to let them converge.” 

“When you say everyone…” Logan trailed off. 

“Everyone,” Dolce supplied with an ominous drop to her voice. Derek could stomach just about anything, he was taught to, but “everyone” was too tall an order for him to remain completely composed. Logan looked constipated. More constipated than he had looked the last few hours Derek knew him. 

“Thanks for the update. Have you searched the park?” Derek asked. He heard Logan sigh and decided it was counterproductive to ask him to leave if he was going to complain throughout the night. 

“Yes, no sign of him,” Mikey replied. 

“And the entrance to the Deadwood?” He prompted. 

“It’s closed off,” Dolce answered. “We had made sure no one could stumble into it. It was...one of the last things we did while the coven was whole.” Derek saw her look at Logan again, but he was already looking around at the shadows, hands and jaw clenched. “Clark brought me there to check and it’s still blocked. That’s the only entrance. No one’s come in or out of that place in North America. I’m not sure about other continents. If Julian were brought there, they would’ve crossed the border or the ocean for it.” 

“Can I check?” Derek asked Clark. 

He noticed Dolce open her mouth but thought better of it. “Do it, Clark.” 

They orbed to an old tree, deep in the forest. There was a huge gap in the trunk that would allow all eight of them to stand in it with enough room to shuffle around without bumping into each other too much. In the lights that the whitelighters summoned, the entrance didn’t look menacing at all, though he could figure out how humans could walk into it and get sucked into a world they had no business being in. He walked to it and dug his fingers into part of the entrance. 

As he hoped, a vision rushed through him. There was no mistaking the Deadwood. The drawing had done it justice at least. 

That was when he saw Julian running down a rocky slope. Sweat began to seep out of Derek’s pecs as the air around him grew thinner and more difficult to breathe. There was a blur of white then the sickly sound of roots leaving the soil. Derek turned. Julian was in front of him, swinging a tree in the air right towards him with a pained grunt. He scrunched his face out of instinct. The impact didn’t come. Instead, he smelled a stale breath coming from a breathy chuckle. Pinpricks appeared on his right shoulder as though knives were closing around it. 

“You can’t run far, Julian,” a crinkled voice rumbled.

The vision shifted with a battered and sweaty Julian crawling away from a four-armed being that held fireballs. The light from outside silhouetted its face. Derek could feel his tongue grow rough, his breath turn dry, and his muscles shrivel under gravity. There was a small, babbling spring at one corner of the cave. Julian was reaching for it. Derek knew better than to try and stop him in a vision, even if this was one of the most vivid ones he’d ever had. He did get a good look at Julian’s watch. 

His consciousness rolled back into his body. He stumbled into the trunk. It was cold again. Julian’s pain lingered over him like a film of sweat after a hot shower. He couldn’t wipe it off. 

Two hands pressed him upright. He expected it to be Logan or Dolce. Instead it was Clark. “What did you see?” He demanded. 

Derek lifted his wrist and pressed a button to light it up.  _ Two-fifty-three. _ “We have one hour and fifteen minutes to get to Julian before he turns into a tree. There’s a demon after him. Four arms. Long proportions. Fireballs. The works.” 

“A roadway demon,” Corey supplied. Derek pointed at him. “Is there a vanquishing spell in the book?” 

“No.” Dolce sighed when both Derek and Logan gave her the most incredulous look. “Cordelia usually—she could make things explode and roadway demons are lesser demons so they couldn’t do much against her. They were easy.” 

“Well,” Logan huffed, “Cordelia isn’t here. She fucked right off way before she showed me how to do that! I can only freeze things, not make things explode so fuck us, right? So much for the Power of Three! So much for the mighty Stanton Coven!” 

“Calm down, shut up,” Derek shouted. Logan didn’t calm down or shut up. He was trying to speak over Derek but he continued, “We can work around it. You create a vanquishing spell while Dolce and I try to undo the spell they did on this portal so we can get in before Julian dies or becomes a tree or both. You throwing a tantrum right now is not going to help. Now, do you want to plunge this universe into chaos and destruction?” Logan glowered at him. “Didn’t think so. Get to it.” 

Much to his surprise, that worked. Logan stomped to the backpack Derek brought to yank out a pen and a notebook. Mikey shuffled toward him in case he needed help. Dolce stood in the same place Logan yelled at her. Derek brought the Book of Shadows there and opened it to the spell they used. 

“I didn’t think we’d have to ever open it again,” she whispered, almost apologetically. 

“Dad didn’t foresee any of this.” Derek offered a smile. “C’mon, let’s save your son.” 

Reverse engineering a spell didn’t take too long when having one of the original authors around. Logan had poured his anger out in the spell, Derek had to remind him to use less profanities or the impact wouldn’t be as strong. Logan gave him some choice profanities before censoring the spell itself. Once this was done, they set up another honing spell in the trunk. 

With an athame pointed towards the back end of the hollow tree and a few symbols scrawled as best as they could on the dirt, Logan and Derek clasped hands. Dolce laid hers on top of them. There was a brief jolt of power, an echo of Julian’s presence. A soft hum flitted up and down the back of Derek’s head. He felt Logan shiver. They glanced at the book and recited the spell. The tip of the athame glinted as the spell wore on. When it was done, it glowed. Both Derek and Logan picked it up and made a slicing motion. A lazy beam of light filtered through the shadows and grew as the portal opened anew. 

They did the honing spell again. There were less roads to follow. It was a short trek but if they rush, they would get to Julian within ten minutes. 

“Stay here,” Derek said. 

“No. He’s my responsibility,” Clark countered. 

“I’m sure you’ve been around long enough to know that orbing around in other dimensions is tricky, especially if you don’t know where you’re going,” Derek replied. 

“So tell me where to go,” Clark persisted with a minor strain on his voice. “Please.” 

“You know it’s not going to be like me saying ‘I want to go to New York’ or ‘Orb be to New Zealand,’ Sawyer,” Derek said. “This is uncharted territory. I doubt the Elders have a map of every dimension to download into your whitelighter GPS.” 

“Clark, stop being a dumbass,” Sinny muttered. 

He chewed on his mouth and cheeks. “If you’re not out of there in thirty minutes, I’m coming in.” 

Derek smiled, smug and satisfied. “Be back in twenty-five, tops.” He asked for his backpack and Raven tossed it to him. He left the grimoire to Dolce. “Let’s go, blondie.” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

* * *

 

If there was anything Logan was great at, it was resentful silence. Plenty of practice with John. Plenty of years without Cordelia or any concrete answers to his questions. And in the short span of time he’d been around Derek, plenty of commands that he wasn’t willing to accept but Derek seemed to be more adept at all this magic business than he was. He didn’t have a place to argue.

He hoped trudging through this forest, the name of which was a fucking pun, was worth the rage that built inside of him. It had to be. This was the closest he’d ever been to finding out more about the woman he’d only ever see in pictures and fleeting memories. This was the most magic he’d been around since his training days. He hated that it had to be with a authoritative jock and a celebrity who was bound to grate at his nerves but it was either that or being sucked into John’s political life. At least as a Charmed One, he’d be more than his father’s gay son. 

“I’m sorry about your mom,” Derek said as he held out an arm. Logan scowled and climbed up the ledge himself. “It sucks that she left you when the going got tough. I would be angry too.” 

Logically, he understood Derek was trying to relate to him and be compassionate. Rage wasn’t fluent in logic so all Logan did was stuck his jaw out, grunted, and continued forward. Derek sighed. Logan wasn’t in the mood for anyone’s pity. 

A few demons had crossed their path. The first few times, Derek put up his fists and licked his lips, ready to spew whatever spells he had memorized. And he had the audacity to call Logan a nerd. All Logan had to do was freeze them and ask Derek if it was the demon that was chasing Julian. 

“No,” Derek would say. 

“Then let’s not waste our time,” Logan would keep walking. 

After a while, Derek wasn’t going into battle mode whenever a demon popped up. Logan froze them and move on. 

Soon enough, they reached a trail that showed obvious signs of a struggle. The smell of singed soil got to them first, then there were cracked boulders, and then splintered trees. From the honing spell they used, the cave they were looking for was just beyond the bend. They ran to when a plume of smoke fluttered into view from behind another slope. 

“Spell?” Derek breathed in even huffs. 

“Here,” Logan grumbled and patted his jean pocket. 

“Be sure to—”

“I know how to unfold things!” 

The smoke had dissipated when they arrived panting at the charred cave mouth. Derek motioned for him to keep quiet. Logan rolled his eyes before obeying. He was tempted to yell at the demon just to spite Derek but he didn’t want to be indirectly responsible for another witch’s death. 

They passed a lot of rubble, stalagmites driven into walls and the ceilings, chunks of the cave missing and found elsewhere. He stilled when they heard a voice. Derek pressed them into the wall as if it would help them. Logan bit back a complaint for the sake of not killing anyone.  

“If you’re not going to kill me, just leave me alone!” Logan shared a confirming glance with Derek.

“Aren’t you thirsty? There’s a spring right there. You should go and drink it,” said a voice that sent the alarms in Logan’s body blaring. His body reacted when Julian didn’t reply. He pushed Derek’s arm away, swatted Derek’s attempts at keeping him still, then whirled into the cave bend. 

The demon’s back was toward him. He’d seen his fair share of demons but this one was the creepiest. Its body was hunched to fit its frame to the cave. Its skin was translucent, showing the dark veins that held whatever evil fluid that kept it alive. His hands glowed with flames, the heat of which began to permeate the cool walls. Logan figured being in the demon world would have them showing their true forms and that demons in the human world had to adapt. He wished he could forget about the form it took. He could deal with humanoid. This was too horror-movie for him.

“Hey!” The demon turned. Its dilated pupils constricted upon seeing him, revealing too much white. The veins made it look like they were made of marble. Logan expected it to roar. He expected a fireball. He expected it to crawl towards him and suck out his soul through his nostrils. Instead, though even more disconcerting, it seemed to smile. Logan froze it there. He’d much rather it had attacked. 

Then it launched toward him. This was the first time anything got out of his freeze in seconds since he was a kid. All Logan did was crouch. He was thrown into the ground by another body as the demon sailed over them. Its limbs remained in position as it did and it impaled itself into a stalagmite. 

“Next time,” Derek rolled off of him, “don’t just duck. Get out of the way.” 

“Whatever,” Logan muttered. 

“Thank you, Derek, you saved me from getting hurt, Derek,” he muttered as Logan picked himself up. That made Logan’s gratitude empty itself into the anger that continued to burn in his chest. 

A stalactite fell into the demon’s form, landing first with a moist rip and then with a sharp crack on the cave floor. “Who the hell are you,” Julian wheezed, “and what took you so fucking long?” Logan turned to Julian, who he’d seen in a few movies and TV shows Michelle forced him to watch. He couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit better to see him looking less than perfect and pristine. 

“Your knights in shining armor, Princess,” Logan replied. 

“Fuck you.” 

* * *

 

Derek ran to Julian, opening his bag and grabbing a bottle of water. “Here,” he said, kneeling, “Fresh from a hotel mini-fridge.” Julian gulped it down in three seconds. Derek gave him another one and he finished that in a flash too. He threw the bottles further into the cave. Derek figured littering was the least of this dimension’s issues. “Can you stand up?” 

“My legs are killing me and I’m about to pass out, but sure, I can manage,” Julian replied with just some effort. Derek put an arm around him. Logan did the same. 

Magic always had a way of announcing itself. It was evident when he shook Logan’s hand and when Dolce joined them in casting the spell. He remembered the first time Amanda had accessed her powers. Flowers bloomed during the winter while they were out building a snowman as per her request. It didn’t help that their parents had a few business partners (the non-magical kind) over but their parents were overjoyed all the same. 

Being with Logan and Julian required fanfare, streamers, and fireworks from the universe. His body was light, as though filled with helium. The world spun around him for two seconds and grew more vibrant. That warm fuzzy feeling bloomed around him. He could feel each of his nerves come alive, right down to his fingertips. The trek to this cave was non-existent. The five-hour flight he took to San Francisco was gone. Energy crashed over him and he felt like he could bench press the Earth without breaking a sweat. Around them were white lights, cascading from the ether. They blinked in and out like fireflies. His heartbeats slowed for a moment as he took the same breath with the other two. The lights disappeared. 

“...What the fuck,” Julian whispered. 

“We’ll explain along the way,” Derek said. 

“Finally, the Charmed Ones. United.” Derek’s gaze jerked to the demon. Black tar oozed in the holes Julian’s attacks had given him, mending itself. The skin webbed around it like it was a separate creature. “Oh, Balthazar will be pleased.” 

“Logan!” The demon froze again with a smile on its face. 

“I want to know what it’s so happy about,” Logan said. 

“I’d rather not interrogate him in this place,” Julian said, stepping forward without so much as a limp. He raised his hands and a few stalactites cracked to his will and hovered around him. “Oh, that was easier than expected. Has this got anything to do with that Charmed Ones thing?” 

“Bit of a long story,” Logan said. 

A vision ran through Derek for a moment. It was the demon getting out of the stalactite stakes driven into him. It closed the portal before the three of them could get out. A group of demons coming at them. Logan did his best to freeze them but they all had to run again. 

“Wait,” Derek said. 

Logan groaned. “What is it now?” 

“Let’s vanquish this thing,” Derek answered. “We don’t want any further mishaps.” 

Logan clenched his jaw then nodded. Julian dropped the stalactites. They gathered around the spell Logan composed. Derek directed Julian to hold onto Logan on one side while Derek did the same on the other. Unlike Logan, Julian obliged without any dramatics, much to Derek’s relief. 

“Did you just literally end the spell with ‘fuck off, demon?’” Julian cast a side-glance to Derek. 

“You try being a poet laureate in under an hour,” Logan retorted. 

“I’ve never really vanquished a demon before. I have bodyguards for that,” Julian said. 

Derek rolled his eyes. He knew just the type. His family had worked for witch socialites before. He was in for a rude awakening when they explained his brand new destiny. “Okay, let’s do this.” 

The spell was a short, four stanza verse with a rudimentary rhyme scheme, but it did the job. With each syllable, Derek felt that same rush of power flowing over him. It vibrated through his bones. Where he touched Logan’s shoulder started to feel magnetic, like he couldn’t let go if he ever tried, though he didn’t even want to. Logan quivered under his touch. Julian’s voice hitched towards the end of the intonation. The burst of magic that came after shook his core and buckled his knees. His head reeled with it and blood sang.

The demon came out of immobilization and began roaring. The skin began to curl away from its body. A dark light pulsed in its chest before it exploded into a buzzing blackness, not unlike the lights that gathered around them when they first touched. They let its scream echo before setting their sights back to the exit. 

They were quiet as they retraced their way out. Derek had seen vanquishings before. He didn’t want to say that this was his first one because he’d seen plenty and they were all the same. But this was his first vanquish. It was a very potent one at that. He couldn’t believe how easy it was. Usually demons squirmed and cursed them out before it was gone. This demon didn’t even have a chance. The prospect of killing even bigger demons sent his excitement to a frenzy. 

“Now will you tell me what the hell is going on?” Julian asked as they left the cave. 

His partners-in-magic would need some finessing but he could live with the extra work. 

* * *

 

Clark and Dolce were the first ones to hug him when he came through the portal. Clark went first. Julian was convinced he was trying to crush him at first but then the hold softened. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” Clark murmured into Julian’s hair. Julian rested his cheek on Clark’s chest and closed his eyes, breathing in his familiar scent. Cologne and sweat and a hint of perfume he knew was from his mother. 

Julian wasn’t sure if Clark meant putting him in a telekinetic box or almost dying so Julian said, “I won’t.” And meant it for both. 

Clark ran his hands up Julian’s back, across his neck, and cupped his face. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t find you,” he murmured. 

“Don’t apologize for that, Popstar.” Julian smiled and squeezed his wrists. 

He turned to Dolce and wrapped his arms around her. She slapped his back. “I taught you to be smarter than that,” she said, though the heat of words had cooled. “Never let yourself go anywhere your whitelighter can’t follow.” 

“Yes, yes. I know.” Julian sighed. Then he dropped his voice, “I wish you told me.”

Dolce stiffened. “It wasn’t the right time.” 

Julian had it all and knew it. He was in peak physical health. He had a successful career in acting. His music career was well on the horizon. He could fend for himself, for the most part. His abilities surpassed many witches he met. He had good friends, even if most of them were whitelighters. His family was free of bad blood. And he was safe now that he saw his stalker destroyed into oblivion. He didn’t want more. He didn’t want to be the most powerful force of good in magic. The power was good but the responsibility that came with it was too great. He couldn’t be a Charmed One. He already had too many things on his plate. He was eating more than he could chew but he could handle what he had in his mouth. This Charmed One thing was way too much. He didn’t want to be responsible for the balance of good and evil. He didn’t want to take on the role of a magical protector of all unless it was for a movie where no real lives were at stake. He couldn’t imagine himself being the go-to savior. He had his philanthropic endeavors but that was as far as he could stomach. He couldn’t bear the thought of being seen as the one who should be saving and protecting on the daily. 

He had a life. The Charmed life wasn’t meant to be a part of it. 

“Hey, sorry to cut this reunion short for a sec,” Derek interjected. “We have a portal to close.” 

Julian looked at him, then at Logan.  He knew them, Derek more than Logan. Derek was a friend he had as a boy. He liked to wrestle, play tag, and color outside the lines. Once, he’d created a dirtman (“A snowman but with mud” Julian remembered that day vividly) and then dirtied Julian’s blanket, making him cry. He recognized that smirk anywhere. Logan, he couldn’t remember or place in those memories. He knew he was the son of a senator that was running for vice president but that was it. He was just his type but he seemed like an asshole. Then again, who wouldn’t be when this brand new destiny was thrust upon them. 

That, or Derek putting himself in the leader role without either of them getting a word in, was still grinding his gears. Julian decided it was an “and” not an “or.” 

Julian put his hand over theirs as they sealed the portal with the athame. The jolt of power that coursed between the three of them further confirmed Julian’s fears. There was no escaping this. They were the Power of Three, they were the Charmed Ones. No one else could be his understudy. 

As much as he loved being in between two hot men, he hated this. 

* * *

 

The fire roared around Jude. His clothes were withering away as he screamed louder and louder into the sky. The heat rose over his head. Blackness choked the air around him. The strain in his voice was evident. People had begun turning away from the sight. The wood beneath him began to sag. He sank into the flames that consumed the life around it. The world around him turned dark. Then he summoned his projection back into his body. 

He gasped. His eyes opened to several worried faces looking down at him. The sky was brighter here. Pain receded in gentle increments. His clothes weren’t the least bit charred. His skin had a sheen of sweat but otherwise unscathed. A pair of vibrant eyes closer to his face crinkled with joy and relief. 

“Was that truly necessary?” 

“It was, Blaine,” Jude replied. He threaded his fingers into the curly mess of hair and brought their lips together. “Don’t worry about me. Astral projection doesn’t do anything to the body.” 

“That was brilliant,” Erin said as she embraced him when he was upright. “That warlock will live in fear for that prophecy and curse.” 

“It’s what he deserves,” Shane agreed. “He shouldn’t be getting away with any of this.” 

“But no more stuns like that, I beg of you.” Blaine tightened his hand around Jude. “I can’t bear watching you suffer like that, for even a moment.” Shane pretended to vomit while Micah smacked him fondly so he’d cease. 

“I’ll do what needs to be done for the coven,” Jude replied, not willing to promise anything. “Micah, how many still need tending?” 

“Just a handful. I’ve just returned and many of us are able to handle it,” Micah answered. 

“Then let’s get to those handfuls.” Jude smiled and tugged at Blaine’s hand. The Stanton Coven might’ve taken a beating today but they weren’t going to be bullied into submission. They were going to rise again. He’d seen it happening. He couldn’t wait for Adam to see his life and the lives of his descendants crumble after all that he had done and all that he would do. 

* * *

 

In one of the many caves within the Deadwood forest, motes of darkness fluttered in the air. They paused for a moment then swirled around each other. A buzz echoed throughout the long corridors of stone until it was almost deafening to anything that was nearby. Nothing was nearby. 

When it all converged, it was in the form of a man, gasping for life. His eyes glowed a violent and aggressive indigo for a moment then flashed into place. He whirled around the cave. Finding no one, he screamed. He pounded the ground until his fist bled and his eyes watered. The world around him warped and flickered over a different world. His insides turned over and dropped into the bottom. There was a quick rush of nausea and dizziness then he looked up at the dais, to the demon who transported him here. He was shrouded in the shadows, watching a projection of Logan, Julian, and Derek orbing away from the forest with their whitelighters. 

“They vanquished me,” Adam said through gritted teeth. “He was so close to that spring. I could’ve had him!” 

“Good thing you weren’t a regular demon then,” Balthazar replied with cool disappointment. 

“I’m going to tear them apart. They’re going to rue the day they took Julian away from me. I will give up on him. He is mine and we are going to be together and I will get what I want.” 

“You will get to play with that kitten soon enough,” Balthazar said. “Now that the Charmed Ones are together, it’ll be more challenging, but nothing is impossible.” 

“You promised me,” Adam reminded. 

“I know what I promised, young Clavell,” the demon grumbled. “I don’t like the insinuation that I don’t follow through with my deals. You will have your chance with Julian soon. It just looks like we need to have a different approach…” He shifted to the same height as Adam as he stepped out of the shadows. Adam saw bright eyes and an outrageous smirk. His brown hair was in the perfect coiff. 

“What are you going to do?” Adam asked, unsure and suspicious of the form Balthazar chose. 

“Just something new I’m trying out.” He summoned a mirror and admired himself. “What do you think of the name Sebastian?” 

“I hate it.” 

“Perfect. I like it.” 


	3. Chaos Rising...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's looking for something. Derek is looking for some cohesiveness between the Charmed Ones. Julian is looking for some peace and quiet. Logan is found by someone looking for help.

Derek didn’t know what he expected when the Charmed Ones got together. He sat in his new, empty California apartment, drinking a protein shake and reading the news. There weren’t any magical gatherings to celebrate it. No team huddle with Logan or Julian. The whitelighters even left them as soon as they were sure they were safe in Julian’s San Francisco apartment for the night. Dolce stayed but left before any of them woke. Logan did the same after getting coffee. Julian offered no comments throughout the morning. This wouldn’t have bothered Derek had they spoken to each other hence. 

The apartment was as silent as it was empty. 

Their magic was still alive and well. It thrummed under his feet wherever he went and fluttered whenever he used it. Nothing could compare to their proximity. Surely they recognized that. They were safer, stronger, and more fortified when they were together. 

Frustration gnawed at the inside of Derek’s stomach. He left a life for this, for them, and they were out there still going about their days like this wasn’t the most important revelation since the Bible was written. They should be here, getting to know each other beyond files and screens, becoming a team, becoming more than just a title or a prophecy. 

Before this could bubble over into something ugly, Derek chugged the rest of his shake. Logan and Julian would come around. He didn’t need to divine that. They have to or the world would go to shit. Even men as selfish as them would see how evil overpowering the universe would be detrimental to their lives. 

Derek picked up the files his father sent him—new assignments in the area. As he rifled, he realized none of them were women. He moved to call him but a message popped up. 

“ _ No. _ ” 

Derek groaned. This was going to be more unbearable than he feared. 

* * *

 

Logan wasn’t paying attention to the rest of the campaign. He didn’t realize he could tune his father out any more than putting his headphones in could until he came back from Julian’s apartment in San Francisco. He was lost in his own head and magic. All his free time went to searching for answers. Googling the Stanton Coven, though the most he could find was some records about them from the Salem Witch Trials. Scrying for his mother, because his father wasn’t going to give him anything useful. Trudging through the deepest parts of the web where the sites hadn’t seen an update since  _ 2005 _ . 

He was a Charmed One. He wasn’t sure what that meant. Derek explained what he could but Logan wasn’t in the most perfect condition to understand. Drunk, then hungover, then vexed, and then horrified. The power was undeniable. A few days later and gusts of magic appeared whenever he thought to use it. He could even see his mother while searching for her. She was alive. Somewhere. She wasn’t smiling. Logan couldn’t remember her smile. She was looking in a mirror when he found her. There was no indication of where she was, who she was now, and if there were others around her or her home. 

There was no reason to talk to her. He didn’t know her, just her name, just her DNA. Nothing was going to change if he did. As far as mothers went, he had Michelle. 

And yet, Cordelia was at the top of Logan’s magical search history. 

His preoccupation made the campaign better. Autopilot was easy with instructions. He followed the crowd, waved Michelle away when she got worried, and smiled when he saw a camera. He couldn’t sleep. All he wanted to do was learn more, but he couldn’t leave. John would flip. If there was going to be a life after this campaign, he needed to play nice. 

Then, while he was up in the middle of almost nowhere Washington, climbing down the stairs of a stage, someone with pink and blue hair yanked him out of the procession. Security was quick but the floor crumbled beneath them. They all tumbled. One cried with pain as a nauseating snap pierced everyone’s surprise. The lights on the stage fell. A crackle of flames began to rise. Logan got slammed into a wall. 

Their pupils were mismatched—one dilated and one a pinpoint. When the other dilated, the opposite pupil shrank. They panted. Their clothes were torn and dirtied. The fumes from their mouth rivaled New York manholes. 

“You!” They gritted their teeth. “You need to help me!” They screamed when a taser bolt hit them right between the shoulders. Logan made eye contact with the bodyguard as the assailant turned their pain into anger. The taser blew up in her hand. She convulsed like she was the one shocked instead. 

“Get off of him,” Michelle tore herself out from John’s hold. Rummaging her purse, she raised a standard stunning potion that she carried around for occasions such as this. Logan raised his hands and the whole room fell silent. He glanced outside the convention hall and it looked like the whole floor had stopped. Despite current company, he couldn’t help but be pleased. 

Then the noise came back without his permission. The person’s fingers dug into his arms hard enough that they might break his skin. Michelle was coming at them and Logan tumbled them both out of the way. He pinned them under his legs and put their head in a sleeper hold. They struggled and clawed. Their nails broke as they ripped his sleeve. Around them, the world continued to fall apart. The sprinkles turned on then the pipes broke. More fires rose. A gunshot echoed through the hall causing more screams. Underneath their shirt, something glowed a dark purple. 

“Charmed One,” their voice writhed. “Charmed One, please.” Then they hung limp. 

* * *

 

Julian was forced to get a couple of days off. He didn’t have any scenes for the time being and one of the supporting actors was getting huffy about Julian muttering his lines to him. Even though he was online, tweeting and taking pictures for his Instagram story now that his stalker was vanquished, he was ignoring a few texts from Derek. If they were important, he’d get a whitelighter and orb here. He already saw the first couple of texts. Training, hanging out, getting to know each other again. They weren’t anything Julian was interested in. He had more important things on his plate. An EP by winter. A recurring role in two weeks time. An online series he was producing and starring by the end of summer.

He had no time. Even though he was prepared for all of these right down to the smallest detail and all he had to do now was show up for recording and filming, he had no time. He was doing fine without them. The boost in power was great and he hadn’t felt spryer than that time he won an Emmy, but it wasn’t anything new. He was already powerful on his own. He could handle himself. He was more interested in playing a superhero (contracts in the works, but that should be a done deal by February) than becoming one. As far as he cared, he was already doing enough good for the world. He had a charity event at the end of the month. He just put his last big paycheck to several trusted non-profits. He wasn’t a fighter. The magical world, and the world at large, was doing just fine without any Charmed Ones. It was going to be just fine without them. 

“Lord help me.” Another message from Derek popped up while answering Tumblr questions. He blocked it again. Derek was doing some magic to unblock himself. Julian could counter this but he couldn’t be bothered expending magical energy to do it just yet. The crystals he needed to lock him out of his phone were back home. Haven was busy with rehearsals. Many other wards could be calling their attention right now for maybe more inane problems. Julian could hold off for another week until he was back in LA. 

Another messaged dinged into place after replying to three more fans. This time, it was his mom. 

“ _ If nothing else, just talk to them. You don’t have anyone in your age to talk magic to. All your friends are regular humans. _ ” 

Julian sighed and switched apps. “ _ I have Haven. _ ” 

“ _ They’re whitelighters, not witches. It’s different. _ ” 

“ _ That’s racist. _ ”

“ _ They’re all white and born before the Titanic. _ ”

“ _ Ageist, then _ .” 

“ _ Ha-ha. You know what I mean. _ ”

Julian sighed. He didn’t reply. There was no use arguing with his mother about this. He could already figure out what she was going to say. She’d been setting him up with witches for years now. Aside from a few dates and hook-ups, he wasn’t too keen on mixing his magical and regular life too many times. He was already used to hiding it. He was used to his life as it was. There was no reason for anything, much less his priorities and goals, to change. 

* * *

 

As security began dragging the prone form of the assailant away, Logan was being pulled the opposite direction. Michelle fussed over him. She demanded for anything to stop the bleeding. Logan, though aware of the stinging on his arms, wasn’t paying attention, as usual. 

“Hey!” John whirled him around by the shoulders. “You aren’t paying attention! As usual! Where have you been the last couple of weeks?! I said get a move on!” 

“I have to talk to them,” Logan said. 

“No! Whatever magi—” John paused to drop his voice. “Whatever magical bullshit is happening, we aren’t taking part of it. This is my political campaign, not a freakshow!” 

“Who said anything about ‘we?!’” Logan shrugged John away. 

“You’re bleeding,” Michelle tried to interject. 

“We still have another speaking arrangement to make and it’s at a college. You agreed to come on this campaign with me.” 

“After being threatened and bribed!” Logan turned around on his heel. 

John grabbed him right where he was bleeding and Logan hissed. His anger reached for his hands. “If you don’t leave with us right now, so help me god I’ll make sure you will never amount to anything more than a kid who does magic tricks.” 

Logan punched him. Michelle screamed. From a few feet away, an intern took a few pictures before running away. Logan stopped the floor. John was midfall when this happened. Logan unfroze him. “And I’ll make sure you’re cursed.” Dread started to drain John of all color. Logan froze him again. He jogged to the exit the security team took the person to. He squeezed past their paused forms and found a janitor’s closet. He pulled back his magic in a sigh. Chaos resumed outside. He heard the shuffle of men in leather shoes discussing where to detain this person and what gender they were. 

“Raven,” Logan muttered then paused. When nothing happened, he went down his list. “Clark, Sinny, Corey, Mikey, Merril, Justin, Hope, Lucy, Katherine—anyone please.”

A shimmer and chime of light rose from a bucket. In front of him Mikey materialized, a little out of breath. “Hey, got here as soon as I could. Oh my god you’re bleeding. What happened? What’s happening?” 

“I’ll explain later. Heal me.” Logan raised his arms towards Mikey. In the small space, it seemed like Logan was moving in for a hug. They were close enough that their torsos were touching. Mikey tilted his head away from Logan and put his hands on Logan’s biceps. A gentle warmth followed by a dim glow came from his hands. The sting in his arms was replaced by a soft tickle. Like a breath or a feather. Mikey dropped his hands to his sides. Logan didn’t have time to overthink this or even blush. 

Maybe afterwards. 

A gunshot interrupted whatever awkward moment they were about to have. A chorus of shots began a second later as the shooters yelled at each other. Logan pushed both him and Mikey out of the closet. The shots were coming down from the next hallway. There was a roar and a body sailed through the air in front of them. With a twist of a hand, the hall went still. Mikey rushed to the singed security personnel to make sure they land without further incidents. Logan turned to where she was thrown from. 

Standing above fallen bodies was a woman, who was as tall as him if she wasn’t hunched over. Her alabaster skin was taut on her outstretched arm. In the air were remnants of an energy blast. Smoke rose from her crooked nails. Her other arm was reaching for the person. An ornate amulet with a glimmering amethyst, framed with tarnished gold filigree laid atop the hollow of their neck. Logan hurried to the person with the glowing thing on their chest. There was no question what they needed help with. 

“Any idea who this is?” Logan asked as he stepped over the hopefully living bodies. 

“Nothing certain,” Mikey replied. “She rings a bell but I can’t be too sure. Any idea why she’s targeting this person?” 

“That necklace,” Logan answered. “Let’s get them out of here so you can get a closer look.” He tugged on them by the arm. Mikey reached for his hand that way they could orb out immediately. Instead of that, the amulet sparked. The figure whirled to Logan. 

“I saw that first.” Her voice oozed under his skin. She swung her other arm toward him, nails turning into talons. Next thing Logan knew, he was on his back. Pain flared between his shoulders but it was nothing compared to the numbing and wet sensation of his skin slashed open. Dark edges swallowed most of his vision. Above him, he could see a large crack webbing across the ceiling. Bits of it fell on his face though those couldn’t compete with the harsh sting of open wounds. 

Mikey’s panicked face appeared at the center of his dimming vision. A familiar warmth fought with his dwindling consciousness. The world began to shift around him amidst bright light. He closed his eyes, not wanting to vomit at the slightest movement. 

* * *

 

Derek tossed his phone away after Julian blocked him the third time that afternoon. He wasn’t going to stop. They were the Charmed Ones and they had responsibilities. What specifically they were responsible for was vague, but he could sense something was right around the corner. It didn’t come from his gut. It was all over him. Like an inch right behind his nose or a song title at the tip of his tongue. Like a promise of a hangover when the drinks stopped flowing. Derek couldn’t get a full vision of what was to come. His father wasn’t getting any either. Whatever it was, the three of them needed to be ready. Derek didn’t want to have to carry deadweight. Powerful as the two of them may be, they lived in the lap of luxury. They probably had people like himself doing the heavy lifting for them. Julian had five whitelighters on hand. Logan and Derek had to save him. Derek couldn’t work with people who had little to no clue how to save themselves. 

Giving up was lesser than the last option. They were born to fight and make the world a better place at a more integral level. If they remain separated, they remained primetime targets. Derek disliked being vulnerable like this. 

He clenched with disgust. Fear was rising in him. He didn’t have the stomach for it. He’d much prefer not feeling fear at all but their prolonged inaction and unsure dynamic fed it to him. Then he clenched harder. The hairs on his arm and the back of his neck shivered. Something drew close. 

Derek moved to his kitchen, though he wasn’t certain why. His powers sang below earshot. He stared at the floor. A couple of seconds later, orbs of light burst from the empty air. They formed an outline of two bodies until they all came together. Logan and Mikey’s harsh breaths pricked the silence. Logan’s head was on Mikey’s lap. Color was just beginning to return to his cheeks. Mikey slumped backwards. 

“He’s fine,” Mikey sighed. 

“What happened?” Derek knelt beside them to help Logan up. The moment his arm went around Logan’s torso, a vision yanked his consciousness away. He saw Logan. He was standing at one side of the stage, hidden behind a door. Then he couldn’t breathe. An arm was snug around his throat as flames ravaged the curtains of that same stage. Derek was choking. He clawed at the arm around him. The scene shifted. He was still choking except he was clutching a rectangular amulet to his neck. The blood in his vessels grew viscous and thick, straining under his skin. He tried to yank the amulet off but it wouldn’t leave. He fell into a chair and it broke. The moldy smell of a motel carpet curled into his nose as he struggled against the amulet. His sight darkened and filled with grief. 

“Cris…” Someone whimpered. Derek rolled over and he could breathe again. This time, the scent of blood on hot concrete entered that first gasp. The air was dry. The sun threatened a heat stroke despite being in the shadows. Before him were two people. He couldn’t tell the gender of the one crying beside the one lying down. They clutched at their pink and blue hair, scrambling for something to do. 

“Cris, take it. Find help,” the one on the ground said. 

“Don’t you have a whitelighter?” Cris begged. “Shouldn’t they be coming?” 

Outside of the alleyway, a car crashed into a wall. Several people screamed. A light post sparked then fell over. The clang of metal on asphalt rattled into the base of Derek’s spine. 

“Too late,” their friend whispered. “She’s here.” She dropped the amulet. Derek crawled

closer to get a good look. 

Then he was in the present. Derek fell backward, catching himself on one of the kitchen drawers. Logan and Mikey were staring at him as he reoriented himself. That wasn’t the future. He’d only ever been able to see ahead, so did his father. This was new. He huffed and dropped his face into his hand, raking a finger through his hair. All the scenes he saw were more vivid than the future could ever be. 

“Derek?” Mikey moved towards him. 

“Where’s that person with pink and blue hair?” Derek asked. 

“The demon took them,” Mikey replied. 

Derek shivered again. There wasn’t enough time left. “Get Julian,” he said. “Right now.” Mikey nodded and orbed away. Derek jumped to his feet and reached for Logan who paused at his hand before taking it. Derek turned and hurried out the kitchen. He looked over his shoulder. “Move! We don’t have much time!” He could feel the cool grasp of Logan’s powers around him but it didn’t settle. He continued to walk.  “Your powers won’t work on me. I’m just as powerful as you are.” 

Logan stomped after him. “You don’t get to boss me around without any context! What did you see?” 

“Nothing good,” Derek countered as they entered a study. At one corner was the Book of Shadows, halfway opened on a vanquishing potion. Derek opened his mouth to continue but Logan jerked him backward and around. 

“Can you not be vague or does that come with being high and mighty?” Logan retorted. 

Derek shrugged Logan’s arm off. “Would you let me finish?!” He bit down on his jaw as Logan glared. Derek was sure Logan was going to punch him. An echo of it ran across his face in that beat of silence. His body was poised to avoid it. He could sometimes tell where blows were coming from in the heat of a fight. It saved him a few extra bruises before. This, however, was more vivid than ever before. 

His frustration waned and the silence stretched. His powers were expanding. He hoped Logan could feel that too. Derek sighed, turning to the book. “That amulet is in here.” He flipped through a few pages towards the front. “My parents taught me a few things about the magical items found here in the States. What they do, who guards them, who’s after them—all that shit.” Derek stopped at the image. His stomach dropped. “Here,” he stepped aside for Logan. He scanned the pages Derek was already familiar with. 

“Known seekers,” Logan murmured. “That’s a lot of names.” 

“There are a lot of chaos demons looking for Eris’ Heart.” 


	4. ...Chaos Kept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek isn't surprised. Julian is surprised. Logan wants to fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Likey.

Logan didn’t enjoy being the dumbest person in the room. It left him susceptible to the whim of others. 

Despite having had all the necessary training from whitelighters and other witches to be able to live a normal and safe life, none of it prepared him for a Charmed one. Certainly, he was faring better than he would if he had no prior knowledge of magic. He wasn’t trudging along on a tight leash. He didn’t have to look to Derek for instructions, though Derek gave it to him as though he needed it:

“I can tell my fucking powdered moonstone from the goddamn powdered limestone!” 

“You’re taking your sweet time looking for it when it’s right there!” 

Since they didn’t have the demon-napped person’s effects, they had to make do. It was Derek’s idea, of course. Logan had no clue there was a spell they could use to zero in on a certain type of magic, in this case chaos magic. Derek acted like it was the most obvious thing in the world and began lecturing Logan about it. Logan’s knowledge on surveillance magic stopped at the four-point spell and common detection wards. He would’ve found the whole thing fascinating if it wasn’t coming from some straight guy whose main method of accessorizing was those big douchebag hats that had sports logos on them. Derek reminded him of all those fratboys that hounded him at his undergrad. Derek’s tone grated at him too. Logan was more than six feet tall but Derek sounded like he was talking to a preschool class. 

Logan couldn’t help but think that had they were told they were the Charmed Ones right from the get go, Derek would be less annoying. Or, as a consolation, he would’ve been less able to sling his vast witch knowledge around like a whip. 

They would all be better equipped. Derek, with his family of witch bodyguards, had that whether or not he was Charmed. When emergencies arose, Logan froze them and ran. That was what the whitelighters told him to do. Never engage unless there was no other choice. 

A shock of resentment buzzed through him. That power to make things combust. He would much rather have that than have the power to freeze. He didn’t take pride in running. With regular humans, he was always down for a fight. Supernatural assailants were another level that he couldn’t tackle for too long. He looked at Derek, a witch with nothing more than the ability to see into the future but able to land on his feet, spells at the ready. He had all the more reason to be afraid and yet he wasn’t. Logan envied all of it. His knowledge, his upbringing. He didn’t like that he coveted someone else’s life when he was living far above the norm. 

In a surprising bout of silence from Derek, who focused on the physical aspect of the spell, Logan asked, “Do you think the whitelighters knew? That we were the Charmed Ones?” Derek’s gaze shifted away from the small cauldron. His thoughts flit through his eyes as he dropped another ingredient in. 

“They should have,” Derek replied. “How else would we have survived all these years without literal guardian angels looking after us?” 

Heat flared up Logan’s throat. “Then why didn’t they train us better? Why did they let me think I was just some random witch in the world? I’d rather be able to hold my own in an emergency than wait for instructions from you.” Derek didn’t wince or move at Logan’s tone. Instead, he maintained his gaze. Logan found this somewhat comforting.

“I don’t know,” Derek answered. 

Logan snorted. “Finally.” 

Derek smiled and it wasn’t sarcastic or patronizing. Logan loathed to think that Derek was trying to charm him into finding him palatable, though it was preferable to the oozing rage that built refuge in his chest. “The powers that be aren’t the most helpful sometimes. Loopholes and divine reasoning and all that bullshit.”

“So there’s just a reason for everything?” Logan rolled his eyes. 

Derek shrugged. “Something to that effect. My parents said it was to keep me from bragging about it and...they were right, sad to admit. Maybe same for Julian. I’m not sure about you though. From what I know, you’re a pretty lowkey kind of guy for the most part. Except for all those disciplinary problems growing up.”

Logan raised his eyebrows. Derek said, “Got a file. Your dad tried to scrub that out before the election but magic has its ways. I’m sure they deserved it.” Not all of them did. Logan cringed as regretful memories jumped into view. He was on the fence about telling Derek about it, even though he was half-certain Derek already knew. 

Then Julian and Mikey orbed into view. 

“You bastard!” Julian stumbled backward when he materialized. “I was in the middle of a meeting with a couple of writers for that show I’m producing!” He pointed at a chair and flung his arm at Mikey. The chair flew. Logan raised his arm and it stopped. Julian glared at him, making a few objects between the living room and kitchen rattle. 

“Sinny’s got you covered,” Mikey said, stepping outside of the chair’s trajectory. “He’s texting them and said that your internet cut off.”

Julian patted his shorts. “You stole my phone?!” 

Logan followed his hands and despaired over the swell of Julian’s ass. He hated that something so beautiful was attached to a witch so irritating. He averted his gaze. “You’ll find that this is more important,” Logan grated through his mouth. 

“I don’t see either of you dying. It can’t be that bad.” Julian stalked up to Mikey. “Take me back right now. That meeting was incredibly important and we have a deadline to work with! Let the other two do it!” 

Logan dug his knuckle into the table they were working at. “‘The Other Two’ are right here!” 

“They clearly have nothing better to do! I’m sure they can handle it!”

“I wish we could because I’d much rather not work with a brat but unfortunately, Princess, we can’t. So shut the fuck up.”

“Fuck you, Wright! Go back to being your dad’s ‘Get the Gays to Vote Republican’ card!”

Logan barreled across the room, freezing and dodging anything Julian started to throw at him, Mikey included. Something zipped past Logan’s ear. Julian yelped then a couch cushion flew into a spinning knife. Logan turned to see Derek retracting his arm after throwing the knife. 

“Julian,” Derek walked around the table. “You can go back to your fucking meeting. Just do this one thing for us and we’ll send you back where you came from. Thirty minutes, tops.” 

“Twenty,” Julian amended. 

“Twenty-five.”

“Fine.”

“Good. Let’s go. The spell is almost done.” Derek faced the table again. He reached to the other side and threw in a few more ingredients. “Logan, grind those pigeon bones. Julian, stir his thing clockwise for me as I pour liquified animal eyes into this.” While both Logan and Julian rolled their eyes, Derek added, “The faster we do this, the sooner we’ll be rid of one another.” Logan looked at Julian. He huffed, crossed his arms, and walked into the kitchen. Logan surveyed the living room with various items stuck in midair. Mikey’s mouth was stuck in the middle of a protest too. He reached for his arm to pull him out of the magic. 

“Don’t—! Oh.” Mikey spun around to get his bearings. Logan found it cute. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” His smile came with Mikey’s and left as Derek barked another order. 

* * *

 

Even with the begrudging help from Logan and Julian, they were holding hands and reciting the incantation within two minutes. A prick of light burned at one corner of Kansas. Then, an image flickered in the smoke rising from the cauldron. It was the very amulet they were searching for. Then, the image changed to a field that looked recently harvested. The land seemed barren and dead. Derek worried this was the effect the amulet had on the farm but the image cleared. A truck full of corn was driving away. Halliwell Ranch, another image said. 

“I’ll Google it,” Mikey announced. 

“Can we go already?” Julian whined. 

“Act your fucking age,” Logan growled. 

“You’re starting to sound like our Fearless Leader here.” Julian nodded at Derek. 

Before Derek could retort, the smoke dissipated and a vision took him over. He blinked and it was still dark. The air was stale and thin. It was familiar to him in a way that he couldn’t place. In the air was the smell of damp soil with a hint of ash. He whirled around but the scent wasn’t getting stronger or weaker. It was just everywhere. Soon, it was joined by the smell of dead wood. 

Then came an echoing whisper, “Julian.” 

As he turned to the voice, he was on a field. It was the same field he saw in the smoke. Except this time, it was on fire. The thick smell of it overpowered the metallic smell of a hurricane. Above him, tornadoes swirled from the clouds and clawed for the ground. There was chanting. It came from the tornado that already tearing up the earth. This one was tinged violet at the base. The voices came from there. 

He was closer now. The wind tore at him like icy spears. There were four demons, clawed arms raised and veins straining against their skin. With his back turned, there was a fifth figure. Not a demon. Not exactly. He was a man whose coat was flapping against the gust. 

Another cry joined the chanting, except it was agonized, not purposeful. Derek raised his eyes to the glowing, twitching body of Cris. Their body was bent out of its natural state. Most of their flesh had cracked away into the wind as dust. Bursts of light rocketed out of the amulet, each one chipping away at them. Their eyes met Derek’s. One eye was shrouded in violet rock while the other watered with a dark liquid. A burst of pain slashed across Derek’s face, drilling into bone. Derek screamed. He couldn’t move his arms or legs, even when he tried to run. 

“Derek! Derek, don’t make me hit you out of this!” Derek blinked and he was pinned under Logan. His sight focused and Logan released him. “Goddamn it. I didn’t know if you were having a seizure or something.” 

“Yeah. Visions can be violent.” Derek dragged a hand around his face. The pain disappeared as fast as it came. “We have to go now. Whatever they’re planning, it’s happening soon.”

“Let’s get the vanquishing potions down then,” Logan said, standing up. 

“We don’t have time,” Derek countered. 

“They’re Chaos Demons. Fairly common,” Logan continued. “How long can a vanquishing potion take?” 

“Long enough,” Derek said then reached for Mikey. “Orb us there.” 

“Wait,” Julian started, “does not needing to make a proper vanquishing potion mean I can go back to work?” 

Derek gnashed his teeth together. “No. You already agreed to twenty-five minutes. You’re staying with us. We need you more than ever now that we’re not doing a proper vanquishing.” 

Julian frown deepened. “So we’re jumping in with a half-assed plan and zero way of obliterating these demons.” 

“They’re low-level. You’ve got telekinesis. You can send their magic flying back at them. Logan can freeze them so they can’t get out of there,” Derek said as he grabbed both Julian and Mikey. “Logan, grab someone and let’s go.” 

“What about you? Are you just going to sit around and look pretty while we take it up the ass?” Logan grumbled. 

“No,” Julian added, “he’s going to hold the demon’s hands and tell them how bleak their futures are and depress them into submission.” 

Derek ignored the stab of rage that pierced his skull. “I’ll be the distraction. Happy?” Logan dug his fingers around Derek’s shoulder. Derek turned to Mikey. “Get us there now or we’re going to have a bigger problem. Just outside the ranch.” 

* * *

 

Flames towered over them when they arrived. Julian’s first instinct was to wrap them all up in a telekinetic bubble. Even if he wasn’t here out of the goodness of his heart, he wasn’t going to be cruel. Then he realized, as he imagined all the ways that Logan and Derek’s gratefulness for his quick thinking could save him from any other unscheduled excursions, the fire wasn’t acting like fire. It stayed where it burned, not getting greedy. The stalks of corn that stood beside the wall of heat remained green while the rest was nothing but ash. 

Derek knelt down. His fingers sank into the soil and his shoulders tensed. “That’s a dangerous summoning sigil if I’ve ever seen one. It’s burning through the farm like a crop circle from hell. I don’t know what they’re raising from the depths—I don’t recognize it—but nothing good can come out of it.” He glanced at Julian for a moment. “There are only four of them now. Mikey, before—”

“What was that look?” Julian blurted. 

Derek sighed. “We don’t have time for this.”

“What did you see?” He pushed. 

“Not so much see, but hear. That vision I had in the kitchen, I heard someone say your name. Then, just then, I heard your name again. I think it’s the same voice. Seeing as we vanquished your stalker, I was concerned. More so because in the kitchen, I saw five figures and now I saw four.”

A chill wound its way through the vessels in Julian’s palms. “When we vanquished him, that means he’s gone, right? He won’t be back? That’s how vanquishings work...right?” 

“Most of the time, yeah.”

“What the hell does that mean?!” He couldn’t be alive. He exploded right in front of them. Things like that couldn’t just come back to life without him knowing. 

A wave of purple flickered through the fires. The fumes coming from the fire thickened around them and Julian’s eyes watered as he struggled to find a breath that didn’t try to gag him. 

“Later,” Derek coughed. “Mikey. Me first then wait a couple of seconds and come back with them.” Mikey lost no time catching Derek’s arm and orbing them out of there. 

Logan and Julian held their breaths. Julian’s vision began to blur as another wave of purple zoomed into view. He couldn’t tell if the ground was shaking or if the smell was making him woozy. Or if the possibility of his stalker’s resurrection was taking more of a toll on him than anticipated. 

Mikey came back as instructed. Julian took a gulp of fresh air when they landed. Adam was a problem for another time. He had to go back to his meeting. He’d never been behind on a deadline, not even when he was elementary. He wasn’t going to start now. The sooner this whole day was done, the better. 

Ahead of them was an altar. Below the altar were five scorch marks all going in different directions into where the fire was. On the other side of the altar was Derek, punching a demon with cracked blue skin in the face. He was grabbed from behind by one with long talons. He kicked the one in front of him in the face, flipping himself and the demon holding him to the ground. Julian was begrudgingly impressed. 

Derek fixed him with a look. “Go! Grab them!”

Mikey reached for a prone Cris on the altar but a chain ending with a hook wrapped itself around his arm. He yowled he was thrown into the air. He orbed away before anything else could happen. Julian whirled around to see a hooded figure. The fifth Derek was probably talking about. From the proportions, Julian could tell it wasn’t a demon, for the most part. The figure wound the chain and hook again. Julian yanked at it with his magic, dragging the figure closer. He tried to lift them off the ground but they countered his magic with ease. Julian whirled his arm in a circle, the chain following the motion. He pulled again and the figure remained though not without strain. Their one arm dropped. A large energy ball bloomed from it and the figure pointed it at Julian. 

It flew. Julian threw himself out of the way. It stopped an inch from the altar, Logan holding it in place. All around them were frozen flames and frozen demons. Derek took this moment to hit their soft spots. Logan’s face contorted. The space around the ball wavered. “I can’t hold it long,” he struggled to say. “Move it.” 

Julian waited for the space around the shimmering ball to wobble once more before Logan roared his name. “Don’t just lie there! Move it!” 

“Where?!” Julian’s eyes darted around, directionless. 

“To one of the demons?! Back to that figure?! Take your fucking pick! You’re the telekinetic one!” The ball moved a couple of inches. Mikey reformed behind Logan. “No! If you move me, we explode. Take Cris now! Julian!”

Julian flapped his arm at the ball and it shot away to Logan’s right. Mikey orbed off with Cris. The demons fell groaning to the ground. When one of them noticed Cris was gone, it roared. Derek got tossed into the fire. Julian raised his arm to catch Derek before he got barbecued. With his other arm, he reined the energy ball to curve back to them. Logan froze them where they ran, brandishing their teeth and claws and dark magic. It crashed into them and they burst with a shattering sound that reminded him of microphone feedback. 

The fire disappeared. There wasn’t any smoke, as though nothing burned. Derek jumped out of Julian’s telekinetic hold and hissed when he rolled his ankles. Otherwise, he was fine. Julian looked around for the hooded figure but they weren’t there anymore. 

_ That couldn’t have been Adam _ , he told himself.  _ Adam was pyrokinetic. Adam would’ve freaked about being vanquished. That figure was calm.  _

A hand fell on his shoulder and he turned with a start. Mikey tilted his head. “You okay in there?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just want to go back. We’re nearing the twenty minute mark.” Julian walked to where Logan and Derek stood. That figure could’ve been any other warlock out there trying too hard to keep the dark and mysterious aesthetic. Since Chaos Demons were so common, he shouldn’t have any reason to worry. 

“We agreed on twenty-five,” Derek said. 

“The earlier the better,” Julian countered then turned to Logan. “When are you going to learn how to make things explode? I don’t appreciate being dragged out of my day for this.” 

“I’m sorry,” Logan replied with faux sweetness. “Next time, we’ll have a meeting with the demons to schedule their plans to ruin the universe as we know it. We obviously can’t detract from your busy celebrity life.” 

Julian glared at him and stabbed his shoulder with a finger. “I didn’t ask for this so cut me some slack.” 

“None of us asked for it!” Logan shoved him backwards. “None of us knew! You’re not used to hearing this but you’re not special! You’re not the only one who has a life!” 

“Please!” A telekinetic burst shoved Logan farther back than Julian could ever do himself. “You’re a nobody being toted around by your dad. Colonel Witch here is literally a full-time witch. I, on the other hand, have a career.” 

“A career doesn’t equate a life!” 

Julian raised his fist and put as much telekinetic force behind it. He had every intention of punching Logan across the ranch. Then Derek shouldered himself between the two of them. Mikey put his hand on Julian’s arm, shaking his head. “This isn’t productive,” Derek said.

“Shut up!” The two of them screamed. 

Logan pushed him away. “If this little shit wants a fight, I’ll give him a fucking fight.” 

“No! I said no!” Derek jumped between them again. 

Julian moved Derek with his magic. “I don’t remember voting you leader, so back off!” 

“Someone has to keep the two of you from doing something stupid!” Derek shoved Julian back and then Logan. He raised a finger at the two of them. 

“Watch out. He’s got finger guns,” Julian said. He opened his mouth again to remind Derek that he was the weakest one out of all of them, therefore not a threat. 

Derek interrupted that.  “We are not going to kill each other over who deserves to be free from our responsibility as the Charmed Ones. None of us are. You two are grown-ass men. Get over it and cry about it to your therapists. As far as I care right now, you’re both free to go. Return to your lives. Mikey,” Derek sighed, “any other Haven dudes I can spare?” 

Just when he said it, a shimmer of light arrived and joined together. “Hi,” Sinny waved. “I’m here now. Clark’s setting up at Julian’s. Meeting should be back on track in two minutes.”  

“Good. Hear that, Jules? Everything’s waiting for you as you left it.” Derek flashed a smile that made Julian want to strangle him.  He turned to Sinny. “Take me back to Cris then you can take Logan back to his dad.” Julian bristled at how easy it was for him to boss around his friends. He was about to comment on it when Sinny, smile still in place, shook his head at Julian.

“You got it, boss.” He wrapped his arms around Derek’s and then Logan’s before orbing out. 

++

Logan stayed but complained the whole way there. 

Derek didn’t mind too much. He was helpful, at least, in trying to find who the rightful owners of Eris’ Heart were, in setting up a locator spell for them, and finding a way to keep Cris sedated so to avoid activating the amulet. Freezing it didn’t work for long. He tried it twice. The first time, Derek warned him it might not work and it caused every glass object in the apartment to break. Derek said, “Told you so,” and he did it again. The sink burst. Logan yelled about Julian should be here to help and not to lounge around. 

The apartment was already a wreck. The amulet had caused a few ingredients to mix together and melt half the kitchen. Derek didn’t realize there were ingredients for that. The shelves on the other end had unscrewed. Thankfully, it was just some regular spices there. Outside, a water pipe burst and there was gridlock traffic around their block. People were fighting in the streets for one reason or the other. This was all in the five-minute span when the amulet was in the vicinity. Derek couldn’t be any more tense than he was. 

At least there was Sinny, who held up a notepad, and attempting to mend everything in the apartment with simple spells most whitelighters could manage. He got giddy each time it was successful. 

The locator spell worked well enough without the full Power of Three. There was some approximations to be made but Derek considered getting close to the Serendipity Hill Coven was an achievement in itself. Being one of the competitors of the family business, Ernest and Melinda have attempted to meet with them and talk shop. They never took the bait, instead took some more of their clients. 

Derek wasn’t surprised when they found them in Florida. Derek was less surprised when they found a proper Gothic mansion, on top of an actual hill. Logan cast a glamor around Cris’ body on a conjured gurney. Try as they might, they couldn’t extract the amulet from their neck. When Derek got burned for touching it, they decided that spells were going to backfire. Keeping their hands off of them, laying them as motionless as possible, and not making any sudden movements seemed to work so far. 

They rolled toward the wrought iron gate. “I understand ‘hiding in plain sight’ but this is too much,” Logan commented. Derek chose not to disclose how their homes were reminiscent of one another. The gates opened with a creek. Derek rolled his eyes. He found solace in knowing they weren’t this dramatic. 

Upon reaching the door, a five minute walk from the gate, it opened. The interior was as expected. Dark wood, red and gold accents, large portraits on the walls, a chandelier. Derek sensed no danger past the threshold. His magic wasn’t coiling in his reflexes. There were no dodges to be made. There was, however, going to be a surprise after the third step. 

“Logan Wright?” A voice said behind them. Sinny screamed then covered his mouth and Logan’s shoulders jerked. 

Unaffected, Derek turned around. There was a tall, wiry young man, who wore too much black and was far too pale to be in Florida. He wore a mask of surprise with a hint of horror as his eyes failed to comprehend Logan’s presence. Derek glanced at the two of them. “Logan, why don’t you introduce us to your friend?” 

“Dwight Houston,” Logan acknowledged. “I should’ve known you were a witch.” 

“Half-witch, half-warlock.” Dwight grimaced. 

“That explains so much. So, so much.” 

“How do you know each other?” Derek prompted. 

“We went to the same boarding school when we were kids,” Logan said. 

“I knew there was something off about you. I tried everything to figure it out. I even tried vanquishing you,” Dwight said. 

“You what?!” 

“I could never get a good read.” Dwight stared at him for a moment. “Something was hiding you. Making you all murky. At least they tried. Bits and pieces of magic popped out from you but nothing discernable.” Logan, for once, looked speechless. Derek revelled in this brief silence. Dwight shook his head vigorously to reset the conversation. “Beside the point. What are you doing here?” 

“I assumed you knew,” Derek said, “since everything opened for us.” 

“We have other things to surveil than our entrances. Had you any ill intent, the gates would’ve dragged you to hell.” Dwight shrugged, like it was a normal statement. 

Derek pulled out his wallet and held out his family’s card. “My parents would love to—” The card withered into ash. Logan laughed. The first time Derek heard him do so and mean it.  “Well, I could tell my dad I tried.” 

“What do you want?” Dwight continued. 

“I believe we have something of yours.” With a couple of choice hand motions, the glamor on Cris puffed away. Dwight’s eyes widened and he ran to it. 

“Alan,” he called. The whitelighter orbed in. Derek was surprised to see a child, just a little more than a teenager. His cheeks hadn’t left that adorable chub stage. “Get to Sadie. The search is over. Cris is here.” 

The young whitelighter grinned. “Sure thing chicken wing.” Then left. 

“How?” Dwight looked up at the two of them.

Derek gave him the summary of events. The longer he spoke, the more agitated Logan was going to be but Derek knew he was going to take precious time by complaining about Julian. Dwight could thank him about that later. 

In a way, he did, by reforming the card that had disintegrated at the head of this conversation. “The Charmed Ones.” Dwight flipped the card over between his fingers and put it in his shirt pocket. “At least now I know we can trust you long-term.” He walked around them and snatched the amulet from Cris’ neck without any issues. Cris’ body seemed to sigh with relief. “I’ll be putting this in a safe place while we find a new protector.” He gestured for the three of them to follow. 

“You’re not seriously putting that thing out there again, are you?” Logan more so demanded than asked. 

“Everything is good in moderation, even chaos,” Dwight answered. “My coven has been tasked to maintain the balance for centuries. We aren’t going to stop now.” They stopped at a wall that Dwight stabbed with a knife Derek didn’t realize was there. The wall split in half and creaked open. Considering that the wall was situated between two windows overlooking the city below, Derek was mildly impressed. 

Inside was a vast array of magical artifacts and weapons. In an attempt to seem worth the Serendipity Hill Coven’s time for the sake of his family, he kept his jaw as far from the floor as possible. “Nice collection,” he said. Logan scoffed behind him, no doubt rolling his eyes as he did. 

“Thank you.” Dwight found one pillar at the center. He raised Eris’ Heart over it and let it go. The amulet glowed then vanished. “There we go. Now for your reward.” 

“You don’t have to,” Derek started, vibrating with anticipation.

“Cut the crap,” Dwight interrupted. He put his hand over the pillar again, closed his eyes, and a silver ring with runes that Derek didn’t recognize (a first) shimmered into existence then fell into Dwight’s palm. He turned to Derek, who held out his hand after he cut his crap. Dwight slid the ring through his index finger. The magic that connected with his own wasn’t anything Derek could comprehend. And it was old. Much older than the sword his father used for special vanquishings. The notion of that filled him with horrified awe. 

“It went by many names in the past millennia,” Dwight said. “Its real name is something no one can pronounce. Translations of that name are far too long and pompous. We call it the War Ring.” 

Before Derek could ask what it could do, Dwight pulled out a sword from out of nowhere. At the same time, a silver sword sprang out of the ring. It had been exactly three years since Derek was last surprised. He let out one, breathy, “Wow.” 

“It gives you a weapon appropriate to the situation.” Dwight tucked his weapon away. Where—Derek couldn’t tell. When it was gone, the sword disappeared into the ring. “This can cut through many hard surfaces, even as a ring, and can injure demons, as well as other magical adversaries, ten times more than your average weapon. Disclaimer: it has a mind of its own. Take that as you will. As much as I love the family archives, you’re not allowed down there and a slow acting poison that we’re immune to has been pumping through the vents so I suggest we make this quick.”

“What the fuck?!” 

“Wright, please. You’re a Charmed One now, get used to it,” Dwight retorted. “A lungful of oxygen’s the antidote. Take a deep breath when you’re out of here.” 

Airborne toxins aside, Derek looked at his ring and smiled. “Thanks.” 

“Considering you have the most passive powers from your fellow Charmed, it was the least I could give.” A flick of a smile appeared at the corners of Dwight’s lips then it disappeared. “Now go.” 

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Sinny, whose shirt’s collar was over his mouth and nose, grabbed both Derek and Logan then orbed them away. 

When they were back in a familiar apartment and took that prescribed breath, Derek slide the ring off his finger and clutched it. He wasn’t getting any reads from it except for the ancient magic. This was going to be a gorgeous addition to the Book of Shadows. His parents were getting a positive report at the end of the day. Despite having the most frustrating teammates (destiny-mates?) in the known universe, they came out just fine. That meant there was still a chance to salvage this dumpster fire of a group dynamic. One could hope.

“I’m gonna go do research on this.” Derek threw the ring up and snatched it in the air. “I suppose you’re going back to your campaign?” 

“Yeah.” Sinny moved toward Logan but he stepped away from it. “But I’m coming back soon after. I want to stay here.” Yet another surprise for a day. Derek prayed for only pleasant ones from here on out, even though he knew it was never going to be granted. 

“What changed?” Derek asked. 

“What Houston said about how someone was shrouding my magic,” Logan replied. “I think it was my mom. I want to find her.” 

* * *

 

Meanwhile, back in Kansas, Julian screamed his frustration out. “What a goddamn dictator!” Cracks formed along the ground as he said it. Then he drew in a deep breath. 

It was over. He could go home and his life could resume. He couldn’t wait until the two of them were competent enough to handle these things on their own. There was no time for delays. 

Mikey stayed silent until Julian turned. “He’s just trying to keep you guys from hurting each other.” 

That deep breath he held raspberried out of him. “Yeah well, he didn’t have to talk to us like a babysitter.” 

“Maybe you should—”

“Save the guidance. I’m not in the mood. Take me back so I can calm down and fake it for my writers.” Julian held out his hand. Mikey nibbled on his mouth, hesitating. “Please.” 

“We need to talk about this soon. You can’t avoid this.” Mikey held him. 

They orbed away. Julian didn’t say anything as his stomach clenched. This wasn’t how his life was meant to go. He was a witch, sure, but that shouldn’t have gotten in the way of his goals. He couldn’t let this throw him off his trajectory. Derek and Logan could be the superheroes here. Julian already had too much on his plate. 

All was not as he left it when Mikey orbed him out of the apartment. 

He’d made a mighty fuss before he was transported. There were upturned chairs. His notes on the script were strewn around. He even spilled his coffee. Now, everything was as they were. There was even a new mug of coffee waiting on the desk in front of the window. Julian smiled. Clark knew how to perfect his coffee order. He was ready to thank Clark even before he took a sip but when he turned to his couch, the world around him tumbled. 

The noise Julian made scraped past his throat. “CLARK!” 

Clark’s lips were pale, almost blue. A bruise bloomed across his left cheek. Lodged in his chest was a black arrow—a darklighter arrow. The blood was half-dry. He didn’t look like he was breathing. Right beside him was a rose that didn’t look quite solid. Parts of the petals dripped into the couch, staining the fabric. There was a note propped on the butt of the rose.

Julian didn’t have to wonder who it came from.


End file.
